Killigrew rolled off the table and snatched up the sword before moving to join Ultzmann. Zhai and the remaining two pilongs – one of them nursing burned hands – backed away, but more pilongs armed with gingalls and pistols ran up the beach towards them.
‘You betrayed me!’ Zhai hissed at Ultzmann. ‘It was you who brought the barbarian ships here!’
‘No. But since they’re here… it is obvious the Englander is right, Zhai. It is over. The Royal Navy has found your lair.’
‘Over?’ Zhai laughed derisively. ‘My dear Reverend, it is only just begun! But for you, it is over. And before you die, I want you to know that Ai-ling will soon die also. Once my men have used her for their entertainment. And I should warn you, some of them have deliciously depraved tastes…’
‘You Arschloch!’ Ultzmann screamed in rage. He pointed the pepperbox straight at Zhai, but the lao-pan was faster. Before the missionary could fire, the lao-pan drew a dagger from his sash with a movement like lightning and flung it. Ultzmann fell back into Killigrew’s arms with the dagger embedded to the hilt in his chest. ‘Rettet sie!’ he gasped in desperation. ‘Um Himmels willen, passt auf, dass ihr nichts zustößt!' He coughed, blood spilling from his lips, and lay still.
Killigrew had no idea who Ai-ling was, or what Ultzmann’s last words had meant – as luck would have it, German was one of the few languages he did not speak – but there had been no mistaking the anguish in the missionary’s final moments.
Killigrew looked up at Zhai.
‘Kill him,’ the lao-pan ordered irritably.
One of the pilongs charged at Killigrew with a sword. The lieutenant snatched the pepperbox from Ultzmann’s dead hand in time to shoot the pilong in the stomach. He turned the pepperbox on Zhai Jing-mu, but the lao-pan was already running back down the beach gesturing at Killigrew. ‘Shoot him! Shoot him!’
Killigrew squeezed off a couple of shots at Zhai Jing-mu’s back but missed as the lao-pan threw himself flat on the ground. Killigrew fired the last two shots at the pilongs charging towards him, kicked over the table to give himself some cover from the bullets which started to whistle in his direction, and then turned and ran.
He dashed along the side of the creek, leaping awkwardly from boulder to boulder as the bullets spanged amongst the rocks. His only chance was that the pilong who had read the signals from the returning, battle-scarred junk had not been mistaken. If Western ships had pursued a flotilla of junks into this cove, it seemed unlikely they would give up and turn back. If they were close enough for him to swim out to, he was saved. If not…
The wide creek meandered around a headland, and as Killigrew clambered over the rocks for higher ground he suddenly found a wide bay spread out before him. There were two ships at the entrance to the bay: a forty-four-gun frigate flying the white ensign, towed by the Peninsular and Oriental Company steamer SS Shanghae.
A ball from a gingall ricocheted off the rocks close to his feet and a splinter of rock stung him in the leg. He dropped down behind a boulder as more bullets soughed over his head.
A moment later the first pilong leaped over him. Killigrew jumped up and tackled him from behind. He managed to get on top of the pilong, pushing him face down into the shingle, and pulled the gingall back against his throat until he had throttled him. Two more pilongs appeared on the rocks above him, armed with a pistol and sword respectively. He shot one with the gingall, bracing the stock against the ground, and then used the heavy gun to parry a sword-stroke from the other before smashing the butt into his face.
The rest of the pilongs were not far behind, nearly two dozen of them. Killigrew picked himself up and ran until he was as close to the two ships as he could get on the land. They were nearly half a mile out to sea, but he could see a gig closer in to shore, sounding the depths over the sand bar at the mouth of the bay. He waded into the surf, waving his arms desperately above his head, hoping the sound of the pilongs’ guns would reach the ears of the men in the ships and draw their attention to his plight.
Bullets ploughed into the water around him. A moment later a gun boomed from the side of the frigate and a shot roared over his head, to burst over the pilongs on the shore behind him: canister shot.
He dived into the water and swam out to the gig with a strong crawl stroke, although after his exertions on shore his strength was close to giving out. Seeing he was in difficulties, one of the seamen in the gig jumped overboard and swam to meet him, helping him cover the last few yards. He managed to get his arms over the gig’s gunwales and clung there, panting. There were three other seamen in the gig, along with two faces Killigrew recognised: Assistant Superintendent Cargill of the Hong Kong Police, and Captain the Honourable Henry Keppel.
If Killigrew had ever had a surrogate father after his own had died, it was Keppel. It was four years since Killigrew had served on the Dido and his old captain was about forty now, but the blue eyes beneath his bushy red eyebrows glinted as mischievously as ever. A younger son of the Earl of Albermarle, he was a small man, less than five feet tall, but he more than compensated for it in terms of personality and strength of will.
‘Hullo, my boy!’ he remarked with cheerful aplomb, as if he and Killigrew had bumped into one another on Pall Mall instead of at the entrance to a pirate lair in the South China Sea. ‘Up to your neck in it as usual, eh?’
‘Permission to come aboard, sir.’
‘I don’t know. What do you think, Haines?’ he asked the coxswain, with his customary crooked smile. ‘Should we let Mr Killigrew into the boat?’
‘He do look kind of bedraggled, sir.’
Aided by the seaman who had jumped into the water to help him, Killigrew scrambled over the gunwales and collapsed in the stern sheets. Grinning, he ran his fingers through his sopping hair to sweep it back out of his eyes. ‘I’m certainly glad to see you chaps.’
‘That doesn’t make what I have to say any easier, Killigrew,’ Cargill said apologetically. ‘I’m afraid you’re under arrest.’
* * *
‘I take it you didn’t come all this way just to arrest me?’ Killigrew asked once he was ensconced in a tub of deliciously warm water in one of HMS Mœander’s cabins.
Seated on the bunk, Keppel shook his head. ‘We’re on routine pirate-hunting duties. Captain Morgan received word that pilongs have been ravaging the coastline in these parts shortly before we arrived in Hong Kong. We set out to give chase at once. Mr Cargill here kindly agreed to come along and act as interpreter.’ He gestured to where the assistant superintendent stood in the open doorway, and Cargill inclined his head with a smile.
‘When we got to one village, Mr Cargill spoke to the people there and they told us they’d only recently paid money to this fellow Zhai Jing-mu to stop him from torching the place,’ continued Keppel. ‘We gave chase and a few miles further on found another village; in flames, this time. We crammed on every stitch of sail and sighted a fleet of fourteen junks. When we closed with one of them Mr Cargill hailed them.’
‘Naturally they told us they were peaceful trading junks carrying salt to Hong Kong,’ said Cargill. ‘But we could see them tricing up their stink-pots and boarding nets, and clearing their guns for action.’
‘We got in three broadsides first and managed to sink three of the junks, but then the wind dropped and they drew off with their sweeps,’ said Keppel. ‘We put the boats in the water to tow us, and gave chase. The next morning found them a mile or so ahead of us, then a light easterly air sprang up and we hauled to the wind on the starboard tack. That was when the Shanghae put in an appearance.’
‘How did they get caught up in this, sir?’ asked Killigrew.
‘One of the China traders chartered her to search for the Coquette,’ explained Cargill. ‘Another damned clipper gone missing.’
‘Not Bannatyne?’ Killigrew demanded suspiciously.
‘Bannatyne? No,’ said Cargill. ‘We signalled that all in sight were enemy, and she gallantly steamed to the attack.’
‘That was when things started to go wrong, though,’ put in Keppel. ‘The Shanghae took a shot through her boilers, and while we were chasing one of the junks inshore we ran on to an uncharted reef. My first lieutenant gave chase with the pinnace, cutter and gig and managed to catch another junk, but the rest got away. The Shanghae got her engines going and towed us off the reef, and we gave chase and… well, here we are.’
‘What brings you here, Killigrew?’ asked Cargill. ‘When I saw you yesterday, you were supposed to be under arrest on board the Tisiphone. Then I learned you’d slipped overboard with one of the hands.’
Killigrew grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry about that. I knew Bannatyne was in with Zhai…’
‘What?’ exclaimed Keppel. ‘Are you trying to tell me that Blase Bannatyne is in league with the pilongs? That’s preposterous!’
‘That’s what I keep telling him, sir, but he won’t listen to me,’ said Cargill.
‘Lucky for us all that I didn’t,’ said Killigrew. ‘I went aboard the Buchan Prayer to find proof.’
‘And did you?’ asked Cargill.
Before Killigrew could reply, there was a knock on the door. ‘Enter!’ said Keppel.
Cargill withdrew from the doorway to allow the Mœander’s first lieutenant to enter. ‘We’ve finished charting the bar, sir,’ he announced, saluting. ‘It’s fairly shallow all the way across, but we think we’ve found a channel where we can slip through.’
‘Good work, Mr Bowyear,’ said Keppel. ‘We’ll cross the bar at high tide.’ He checked his fob-watch. ‘That’s two hours from now. Have the decks cleared for action.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Lieutenant Bowyear turned to leave.
Killigrew’s voice arrested him. ‘Hold on, sir. You’re not planning to sail after them up that creek, are you?’ he asked Keppel.
‘I don’t see why not. There’s only seven of them.’
‘Correction, sir. There were only seven of them when you chased them into this bay. But they’ve just met up with another thirty-five of their friends. Including Zhai Jing-mu’s flagship.’
‘Zhai Jing-mu is here?’ Cargill exclaimed in shock.
Killigrew nodded. ‘You’ve stumbled on to his base of operations, sir.’
‘How the deuce did you find it?’
‘The Reverend Werner Ultzmann had me brought here after Captain Ingersoll caught me on board the Buchan Prayer last night. You want proof that Bannatyne’s in league with the pilongs, Mr Cargill? The fact I’m here at all speaks for itself.’
‘Hardly proof, Killigrew. Perhaps it ties in Ingersoll and Ultzmann, but… you understand, I’m only thinking of what a jury will believe after Mr Bannatyne’s lawyers have had a chance to work on such testimony.’
Killigrew narrowed his eyes at the assistant superintendent. ‘And what do you believe, Mr Cargill?’
‘I’m a police officer, Mr Killigrew. It’s my job to prove, not believe. What I believe is neither here nor there.’
‘All this will have to be settled later at Mr Killigrew’s court martial,’ Keppel said firmly. ‘If there is a court martial, that is, which I’m very much beginning to doubt. When a junior officer finds a pirate nest the navy’s spent years searching for, it’s damned bad form to court martial him by way of thanks.’ Keppel’s promotion to post-captain predated Morgan’s, so his arrival at Hong Kong made him the senior officer on the station. ‘I’d say taking care of Zhai Jing-mu must be our first priority.’
‘Killigrew’s right, though,’ said Cargill. ‘You can’t take on that many junks with just one frigate and a lightly armed civilian steamer.’
‘No,’ agreed Keppel. ‘But we can try to keep the swine bottled up here until reinforcements arrive from Hong Kong.’ He stepped across the tub and bent over the desk, swiftly scrawling a dispatch. When he had finished he blotted it, put it in an envelope and handed it to Bowyear. ‘Take this to the captain of the Shanghae to deliver to Captain Morgan in Victoria.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘And see if you can find the wardroom steward. Mr Killigrew looks as though he could do with a drink.’
A Chinese steward emerged from his cubbyhole, took one look at Killigrew and then ducked out of sight just behind the door. ‘Hai?' he asked Keppel with a bow.
‘Be so good as to fetch Mr Killigrew a brandy, steward.’
‘Hai.’ The steward bowed again and crossed to the drinks cabinet on the far side of the wardroom.
Keppel exchanged bemused glances with Cargill. ‘It seems our new steward is shy about the human form, Mr Cargill.’
Killigrew stood up in the bath and tried to get a better look at the steward’s face, but the Chinese, as if aware of the scrutiny, kept turning his head away so that all Killigrew could see was the queue which hung down his back. Keppel handed him a towel and he started to dry himself. ‘New steward?’ asked Killigrew. ‘How long’s he been aboard?’
‘This is his second day. We hired him in Victoria yesterday when our old steward was suddenly taken ill with stomach cramps. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason. I just thought perhaps I’d seen him somewhere before. At the Hong Kong races, maybe, or in a joss house in Tai-ping-shan.’
‘Entirely possible, I suppose.’
The steward returned with Killigrew’s brandy. He had acquired an oilskin hat and wore it ludicrously low on one side of his head so that, as long as he kept his face in profile, it was concealed from the lieutenant. He handed the glass to Killigrew.
‘Thank you, Mr Li.’
‘Name no Li,’ said the steward. ‘Name Deng.’
‘Of course it is,’ Killigrew said with a thin smile.
After his bath, he changed into a spare uniform loaned to him by Bowyear, who was roughly his size, and was given something to eat in the wardroom where he recounted his adventures aboard the Buchan Prayer and afterwards to Keppel, Cargill, and the Mœander’s officers. After dinner he joined Keppel and the Mœander’s master on the quarterdeck for a cheroot and the three of them gazed across to the mouth of the creek in the gathering gloom of dusk. The Shanghae had long since headed back to Hong Kong, and the Mœander was alone off the mouth of the bay, the only thing between Zhai Jing-mu’s fleet and the freedom of the open sea.
‘What do we do now, sir?’ asked Killigrew. ‘Wait until reinforcements arrive?’
Keppel nodded. ‘Not much else we can do. I’ve had Mr Bowyear double the anchor watch in case the pilongs try anything tonight, but I expect they’ll be busy turning their anchorage upstream into an ambush in preparation for our attack. Should be quite a brisk fight tomorrow, eh?’ he added with obvious relish.
Killigrew thought about it. ‘Brisk’ was one word for it. But he would have been lying to himself if he had tried to deny that he was looking forward to the chance to pay the lao-pan back for Peri’s murder.
‘Zhai Jing-mu’s slipped through my fingers too many times, sir, and at terrible cost. It won’t happen again.’
The Mœander’s master chuckled. ‘A regular fire-eater, sir, just like his father used to be,’ he told Keppel.
‘You knew my father?’ Killigrew asked him.
‘Certainly, sir. Back in the twenties your father and I were unemployed on half-pay, so we joined Admiral Cochrane in helping the Greeks win their independence from the Turks. But you must know all about that. I can see you’ve inherited your looks from your mother, but from what I’ve heard your spirit is all your father’s. Always dashing off impetuously, risking his neck in pursuit of one ideal or another.’
None of this matched with the mental image Killigrew had conjured up of his parents. He was astonished. ‘I had always assumed my mother was the fiery one. You know, what with her being Greek and all.’
‘Your mother? Good Lord, no. No, your mother was always a lady. Demure, softly spoken and kind, she was. Lovely girl. Except when she was killing Turks, of course. She loathed them with a passion. Still, she couldn’t match your father when it came to being a buccaneering, jum
p-first-and-look-later sort of swashbuckler. Hot Celtic blood, I always supposed – but I was always glad he was on our side, bigod! Captain Spitfire, the men used to call him.’
Keppel checked his watch. ‘Well, I don’t think we’ll see much activity tonight. I’m off to bed to get an early night. I suggest you do likewise, my boy. Tomorrow’s likely to be a long day.’
Killigrew lingered on deck alone to finish his cheroot and thought about what the master had just told him about his parents. Everything he had previously assumed had just been turned on its head. All his life he had struggled to emulate his father, a man whom he had always pictured as being a staid and proper gentleman. Yet there had always been part of him which found it difficult to control his passions and act in a gentlemanly way; he had always assumed it had come from his mother; it was like being two people at the same time, constantly at war with his inner nature.
He remembered what the Taoist priest had told him at the joss house in Tai-ping-shan: two conflicting influences in his life – yin and yang – two people he would never meet again who would always be with him. His father and mother, of course; he had been a fool not to realise it sooner. Perhaps it was time for him to stop trying to suppress his passionate nature, but to make the most of it. Instead of trying to be one thing or the other, he would accept that he was both. Perhaps the two combined would be greater than the sum of their parts: after all, he was neither his mother nor his father, but the product of their union.
He chuckled to himself. ‘Captain Spitfire, eh?’
The Mœander’s gunner overheard him. ‘Sir?’
Killigrew flicked the stub of his cheroot overboard. ‘I’ll show you tomorrow.’
* * *
There was a knock at the door to the first lieutenant’s cabin. ‘Come in,’ called Bowyear.
A marine private entered and brought in a couple of jugs of steaming hot water. ‘Seven bells, gentlemen.’
‘Thank you, Marine Fawcett. You can go first at the wash-basin, Killigrew.’
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 35