“You’re Cassandra today,” Mary observed.
“But I trust you won’t disbelieve me. Our old complacent ways must change radically. We won’t face a suspicious, xenophobic anachronism of an Imperial Dynasty, but a disorderly mob of petty princelings or men-on-horseback. Near chaos will first hamper trade, sharply reduce profits for all but the canniest. But long-term prospects are virtually unlimited. China will want European manufactures. Not only consumer goods, but capital goods—machinery and vehicles, dams and railroads.”
“And what,” Sir Jonathan prodded, “do we do?”
“That’s your pidgin, Jonathan. Remember our compact: I make the wild projections; you make the practical plans.”
Mary and Harry exchanged glances. They had speculated on the precise relationship between the two men: the scholarly Englishman devoted almost exclusively, it appeared, to the study of Chinese civilization; and the thrusting Eurasian who was passionately committed to China, but even more passionately committed to his own ambitions.
“Just this time, Hilary,” Sir Jonathan pressed, “what would you do?”
“Pick a horse or train a horse,” Metcalfe advised, “and bet on it. Put your bundle on the front-runner, but lay off the risk on a few others. Front-runners can break a leg or stumble.”
“Expressed with less than your usual polish, Hilary,” Mary twitted him, “and less than your usual forthrightness. What do you mean?”
“Simple, my dear. Bet on the politician or general with the best chance. That’s Dr. Sun Yat-sen. But keep in with the others.”
“And what, precisely, Father,” Mary persisted, “do we do?”
“You’re a hard taskmistress,” Sir Jonathan protested. “But I’ll be specific. Take one commodity as a test—take opium, the foundation of Hong Kong.”
“But the trade’s dying,” Harry objected. “More restrictions every year, more resistance, and a dwindling flow—thank God.”
“Dwindling, yes. But very robust for an incurable case. A year ago opium brought in five and a half million pounds sterling—almost ten percent of the Colony’s trade. Harry, it’s still big, much as you’d like to see it stop.”
“But it’s dying. You know what’s happening. Four years ago, the Manchus promised to stamp out the traffic in ten years, and two years ago they issued a formal decree. Last year, London promised to cut imports by ten percent a year for ten years if the Chinese did the same. That leaves only ten years. And only five months ago London told the Governor to close Hong Kong’s opium divans. He can’t stall much longer by pleading loss of tax revenues. Opium’s on its way out.”
“But there’s still money in it, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” Harry acknowledged grudgingly, “for those who want money that badly.”
“Derwent’s does,” Metcalfe said softly. “After all, it’s traditional.”
“Traditional!” Harry snorted. “Derwent’s sacred opium tradition, spinning money by any means, no matter how many million lives are ruined.”
Mary groped for the right words to forestall a clash between father and son. She, too, had learned to hate the opium traffic—not abstractly as Harry hated the sticky black drug because it debased and weakened China, but most personally. She had seen the effects too often: rickshaw coolies so emaciated their muscles shrank beneath their parchment skins because they couldn’t buy both sufficient food and the “black rice” that made their existence endurable; twelve-year-old girls sold to procurers to pay for their fathers’ addiction; pinpoint pupils in the shallow pebble eyes of seventeen-year-old youths whose wealthy parents indulged their every wish, even opium. Yet the greater part of Sir Jonathan’s fortune came from serving Derwent, Hayes and Company, the hong that had, above all others, grown bloated on opium profits. In his hatred of opium, Harry was tearing at one of the chief strands of his father’s life.
“I’m sorry, Father.” Harry himself broke the tension, abashed but firm. “That’s how I feel. Opium’s very bad business—for both merchant and customer.”
Sir Jonathan carefully selected a golden-brown panatella from the humidor before murmuring: “I agree with you, my boy.”
Mary stifled a gasp. She was accustomed to the white-haired autocrat’s delight in producing surprises with a subtle flourish like a modest conjurer. But, this time, he had truly astonished her. How could he blandly endorse Harry’s impassioned denunciation of the opium trade that had made half his fortune? She would have expected a cynical well-reasoned defense or, at least, a world-weary evasion.
“I agree completely,” Sir Jonathan added when his cigar was well alight. “But there was little I could do about it before now. The first thing was to establish myself. It looks different to you who were born to position and comfort. For the natural son of a mad Irish adventurer, the first, the only essential was to establish himself. And there was only one sure way—opium. Anyway, Harry, you’ve never refused the tainted dollars.”
“I know, Father!” Harry, too, was startled. “Maybe I should have. By the time I realized, it was late. But, now …”
“I wasn’t baiting you, boy.” Sir Jonathan’s raised hand commanded silence. “Hear me out. God knows, I’ve argued the toss with Dick Wheatley and that dried-up old trout, Rachel. Both swear opium’s a blessing second only to Christianity—a gift bestowed upon the wretched heathen. At least I’ve never been a hypocrite.”
“But,” Harry insisted, “you didn’t hang back.”
“I didn’t. Whether you approve or not, the old rationale’s true: If I hadn’t, someone else would’ve. I couldn’t stop the traffic single-handed. Besides, I had to make my mark, and it was the only way, the only possible way. Perhaps, too, I didn’t realize until it was too late.”
Sir Jonathan’s long fingers meticulously tapped the ash from his panatella, but his voice rose a tone. The momentary loss of self-control was as uncharacteristic as his deigning to justify himself to his son.
“And now what, Father?” Harry asked.
“I awaited that one. Now, it’s different. Wheatley wants to go on to the bitter end. Jardine’s want to go on. So do Swire and all the little fish. They want to squeeze the last copper penny out of the traffic. You know they’ve joined to form the Hong Kong Opium Corporation. They’ll peddle the poison drug as long as there’s a single customer left in China—or a single peasant planting poppies in India, Burma, or Persia. Opium won’t be outlawed in Hong Kong. Not for years, if ever.”
“And you, Jonathan?” Hilary Metcalfe eased his question around the mouthpiece of his pipe. “What now?”
“I could use the same old argument. If I don’t, others will, so why shouldn’t I take my cut? But it’s different now. The trade’s dying, trickling away, as Harry says. Every tael I ship, every blasted ounce, swells that trickle and postpones the day the traffic ends. Then, by the bye, worse things’ll appear—morphine, cocaine. I can’t worry about them now. But I must worry about opium. It touches my self-respect—and my profits.”
“Profits, Father?” Mary could restrain herself no longer. “If the traffic’s dying, where’s the profit, except in going on to the bitter end? You’ve taught me the big profits are the pennies that turn into dollars.”
“And you, Mary, have taught me your motto: If you’re doing something foolish, go the whole hog. Maybe it’s foolish to reckon that we can profit from hamstringing the opium traffic. But I think not. Everything comes together nicely—what we’d like to do, what we should do, and what we’ll profit from.”
“How?” Metcalfe was blunt.
“We can make firm our repute with the men who’ll be the new masters of China. There are ways to cut the traffic down, for the good of our souls, for the sake of our name. To establish ourselves solidly with the republican rebels, and to shove a damned big spoke into Dick Wheatley’s wheel for the good of—”
“—us all.” Hilary Metcalfe completed the sentence. “But how, precisely, Jonathan? Have you thought it through?”
“I
’ve begun.” Sir Jonathan was evasive. “We’ll talk when I’ve got further. Meantime, a thought to show my idealistic son I’m still the same old devil. There’s one other great benefit. Getting out of opium will force us into new enterprises—for the good of our pocketbooks.”
“How do you mean?” Mary pressed.
“Those who cling to opium will go under,” the magnate answered. “Not the big hongs—Derwent’s, Jardine’s, Swire—but the smaller hongs with limited resources. If they don’t get out, they’ll perish. Having lived by the pipe, they’ll die by the pipe. Their capital and their talents are limited, and both are committed to the traffic that must dwindle.
“But those who get out now must devote their energy and their capital to new enterprises. No one offers assurance policies to the new, middle-class Chinese in the treaty-ports. And cotton, all kinds of textiles. Why should China always buy from Lancashire? Railroads. We’re already involved in a middling way, and railroads must grow. The petroleum trade. Paraffin’s already widely used for heating, cooking, and lighting. More ships are burning oil.…”
“Petrol for motorcars and lorries is still only a trickle,” Mary interrupted. “It should certainly swell.”
“Transport, motor-transport.” Harry was the unabashed visionary. “Motor-lorries and omnibuses carrying goods and passengers all over China. Entire fleets flying our gold-and-blue pennant, the Flying Dragon Line! Cheap, reliable transport will change the face of China. China’ll become a modern country, the flow of commerce its life-blood.”
“First build your roads, Harry,” Metcalfe advised. “It’s only ten years since Parliament required a man with a red flag to walk in front of every motor-vehicle in order to warn pedestrians and horses. Your idea’s exciting—but railroads come first. They’re proven.”
“There are cart-tracks all over China.” Harry was bewitched by his own vision. “And remnants of the great post-roads the Mongols built six hundred years ago.” He gesticulated broadly as if conjuring up his phantom Armadas.
“Motor-transport’s the answer. Motor-roads are easier to build than railroads, less capital and less effort. I can see our flotillas penetrating to remote villages and connecting market towns to big cities—all under the Winged Dragon.”
“And, Admiral, leaving a trail of broken wheels and fractured what do y’call ’ems—gears,” Mary laughed. “That happens every time you or Charles takes out the new Daimler.”
“Those troubles’ll be cured,” Harry insisted. “We must be in the forefront.”
“Why not flying-machines, then?” she mocked. “Those American brothers, the Wrights, their kite with a motor flew—when was it?”
“About Christmas of ’03,” Harry said.
“Yes, and Berliot crossed the Channel last year. Why not fleets of flying-machines flaunting the Winged Dragon? All they need is a flat place to land. No heavy capital investment, no roads—not like motor-lorries and omnibuses.”
“Well, why not?” Harry rejoined, stubbornly ignoring Mary’s gentle teasing. “That too—flying-machines, too. But only land transport can change China. Flying-machines will never carry heavy cargoes or more than a few passengers. But motor vehicles will shift massive loads, transport farmers and their produce ten, twenty, fifty miles to market towns, transfer spinning and weaving plants into the interior, and bring their manufactures out—move everything from coal to pigs.”
“Perhaps close to the cities to start,” Mary conceded. “But who’ll train thousands to drive and repair those mechanical monsters? And what about costs, my dear? Who knows what the contraptions’ll cost to run?”
“We can sort out details later,” Harry replied airily. “Now we need the will. Consortia can provide capital. The big landowners could come in.”
“And smash their own power?” Metcalfe interjected.
“Let’s think of details, Hong Kong to start.” Mary was determinedly practical. “I’ll be half-convinced the first time one of your Puffing Dragons delivers lobsters, shrimps, and crabs taken from the sea off the New Territories that morning for me to serve at a luncheon party on The Peak.”
“Enough,” Sir Jonathan laughed. “Let’s consider immediate things, enterprises within our reach. Think of expanded mining, smelting iron and steel. Why not bicycles or spring-mounted, pneumatic-tired wheels for ox-carts and donkey-carts—products we can make now? Or improved hoes and plows, in time harvesters and reapers? The market’s not unlimited. But it’s big—very, very big.”
“Even thermos-bottles and paraffin-stoves.” Mary’s practical enthusiasm was engaged. “They’d change everyone’s life, those small products.”
“And arms.” Harry’s visionary zeal swelled. “China needs modern arms, not the obsolete rubbish Krupp, Schneider-Creusot, and Vickers are dumping. Rifles, machine guns, and mortars, artillery and warships, first for the revolution and then for defense. China must build her own armaments, not remain dependent on outsiders.”
“You’ll need money.” Metcalfe dourly pricked the bubble. “Money to plant and grow, money to lose on the inevitable failures.”
“We’ll need money, Hilary,” Sir Jonathan said. “I assume you’re with us.”
“Of course I am, Jonathan—in principle. But I want your fledglings’ visions reduced to dollars and cents. Then my few dollars are at your disposal.”
“For my part, Hilary, I value your counsel above all, though your dollars’re welcome. As for money, governments, even poor governments, have resources private merchants can’t dream of. And governments can borrow. Borrowing wisely, they insure their sovereignty, rather than selling themselves as the Manchus have done. And governments need financiers to advise them and to arrange loans, disinterested financiers.”
“I see, Jonathan,” Metcalfe said, “that you’re planning to own the next government of China.”
“Not own it, serve it. When you deal with an honest government, profits are smaller. But I’d rather one percent of fifty million than ten percent of five million that suddenly vanishes.”
“Business must expand.” Harry’s enthusiasm rekindled itself. “And we’re in at the start. Think of the power, power to do what foreigners have promised China, but never delivered. Power to remake a nation for the good of all.”
“And, my young cockerel, power to make our own position impregnable,” Sir Jonathan added. “The House of Sekloong the greatest firm in Asia, and very strong elsewhere. I’m sending Charles to Europe and America next month to renew connections and set up small offices in London and New York. Where is he tonight, by the bye?”
“Oh, he’s out.” Mary said noncommittally. “He had someone to see.”
“Out?” Sir Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “Someone?”
“He’s solid.” Mary loyally evaded the implied accusation. “He’d scoff at our notions. But what better emissary to impress the bankers with our stable worth?”
“And Mary and myself?” Harry asked. “What are your plans?”
“Mary remains in Hong Kong,” Sir Jonathan announced with magisterial calm. “I need her here. For you, my boy, a very special mission. But it’ll keep until tomorrow.”
January 5–7, 1909
The new moon was an abandoned lifeboat awash in scudding clouds. Its beams penetrated the hollows of the paddyfields, and the ricestubble glowed palely. The next wave of clouds overbore the moon, and the earth was dark. The deserted margin of sand where the ocean met the continent was a whitened scar on the spectral early morning landscape. The smoky ghosts of dead cooking-fires drifted across the paddyfields from the stone-built hovels shining like silver-gray skulls five miles distant. The lingering stench of human excrement strewn on the young rice six months earlier tainted the winter wind that swept the skeletons of fallen leaves toward the South China Sea.
A restless dog lamented the lost moon from the slumbering hamlet called Wong Family Village, and his whining alarmed the watchers in the hillocks overlooking the white-capped inlet. Though the watchers and the
ir long-barreled rifles were concealed in the spiky grass, they glanced apprehensively over their shoulders. Any movement on the land boded ill for their mission and their lives. All men were their enemies that night.
Reassured by the dormant landscape, the watchers again turned their gaze on the bay called Haimen, the Gate of the Sea. Though it was only twenty miles south of the thriving port of Swatow by land and one hundred ninety miles by sea from Hong Kong, the march of commerce had bypassed Haimen. Aside from the cockleshell sampans of the local fishermen, Haimen received only deep-sea fishermen in distress and long, dark-sailed smuggling junks. Winter had frozen the bay into quiescence.
Harry Sekloong peered impatiently at his gold pocket-watch. The radium-painted numerals glowed as faint as the phosphorescence on the waves, and the hands were a single bar of pale-green luminescence. It was six minutes past one, still thirty-eight minutes to wait for the flashes from the sea.
Beneath his plaited-bamboo hat, Harry’s eyes searched the shadowed horizon. The only movement within the great semi-circle where water and sky met was the angry leaping of the sea. No man-made object broke its featureless symmetry; no flicker of light pierced its gloom. When the new moon sank beneath waves of clouds, he could not even see the six forty-foot shrimp-boats lying in the dune-screened cove a hundred yards away. When the moon lethargically surfaced, only the swaying of high-raked masts against the clouds revealed the boats’ location.
Shifting to relieve his cramped legs, Harry slipped the watch into his pocket. Like the 126 men concealed in the scrub-grass around him, he wore the rusty-black tunic and trousers of the poor of Kwangtung Province. But he could not disguise his height.
Harry had landed just after the early dusk cloaked the water and the hills. Salt-caked and sore after three days spent beating two hundred miles against the southwest monsoon from Bias Bay, he had been delighted to alight even on that inhospitable coast. Each carrying its detachment of armed men from a different port, five other junks had slipped into the cove at intervals. The last put into the Gate of the Sea at midnight from Foochow, 285 miles north.
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