Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  “My lord,” said Pien, “I do not think it would be a difficult thing for you to take her. I doubt even this missionary would dare stand against your might.”

  Wang folded his thick arms and leaned back, his evil face softening slightly as he savored the anticipated pleasure of the granddaughter of the haughty Tien begging for his favors.

  The room was silent a moment more; then Wang spoke again. “Is this the extent of your report?” he asked gruffly, wanting to have done with this simpleton now that he had more important matters to consider.

  “There is . . . just one more thing, my lord,” began Pien hesitantly.

  “By all the gods!” yelled Wang, “you are a veritable fountain of gossip! What is it? Then be gone with you!”

  “There are two visitors at the mission—”

  “What do I care about that?”

  “Perhaps they could be used to your advantage,” Pien suggested.

  “I am the one to decide that! Who are these cursed visitors?”

  “British sailors, my lord—from the vessel, Sea Tiger.”

  “The Sea Tiger, you say?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Hmm,” mused Wang, rubbing his beard again. The man was right; there were definite possibilities here. But inherent dangers also. It would require wisdom and cunning, and not a little shrewdly applied deceit—talents of which Wang had ample supply.

  “Prepare my things for departure,” he ordered Pien, then pondered a moment further. No, he would not go begging for this woman. But it was time he got himself closer to the fire, as it were. “And send that fool of a one-legged sea captain to me!” he added as an afterthought, at last dismissing Pien with a wave of his hand.

  Pien backed out of the enclosure, bowing slightly and keeping his beady eyes fixed on the bulky man in front of him. His action came not so much out of trying to assume an attitude of respect, but because in his master’s erratic mood, it would be most foolish to turn one’s back on him.

  43

  The Sailor and the Monk

  Robbie stretched and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  He hadn’t intended to sleep so soundly nor so long. But he had walked several hours that night, and when he paused on the roadside for a rest, still exhausted from the day’s activities with Coombs, he had fallen into a deep sleep. Only the sunlight, combined with the early-morning clamor of farmers on their way out to their rice fields, finally woke him.

  He judged he had walked eight or ten miles, and, from everything he had been able to gather about the lay of the land from his time at the mission, was generally confident that he was on the road toward Shanghai. Now that it was daylight and the possibility of seeking river travel presented itself, he began to think about looking out for a junk going his way. Yet his lack of money was a serious hindrance. And did he even know his final destination for certain? He was headed in the direction of Shanghai, the logical place to go to find a berth on some ship. But was that what he really wanted? What else? he asked himself. What else could a sailor like him hope to do? The very fact that he questioned it at all was absurd! Of course he had to find a ship! That was his life.

  He sat down once more in the lee of the bamboo grove where he had spent the night and opened his rucksack in search of breakfast. But the first thing his eyes fell upon was Hsi-chen’s New Testament.

  Robbie sighed deeply. He had not been able to get her face or her hauntingly dear words out of his mind. She had even intruded upon his sleep, coming into his dreams as a ministering angel, as he had first perceived her that night in the hospital while he lay unconscious from his ordeal at sea. Many times as he had walked along that dusky road leading away from Wukiang, he had entertained the idea of returning to the mission. The thought of never seeing Hsi-chen again weighed like a millstone upon his heart.

  The idea was ridiculous! How could he think he loved her? She was simply a sweet girl who had become his friend, and whose enchanting Oriental face had bewitched him in his sleep. She was like Jamie, who had become his friend. That was it, of course! He could not be so foolish as to confuse friendship and love again. Love was something else. Love was . . .

  He shook his head, trying to get such bewildering thoughts to leave him. It was not time to philosophize now. He had said his goodbyes, and that was that. He would forget soon enough. He might return someday, who could tell? But now he was off, and it felt good to be moving again, to have his feet under him, his destination unknown, his freedom secure! He was a traveler, after all, an adventurer, and this was the life for him!

  He broke off a chunk of bread from the loaf Hsi-chen had packed and munched on it with an exaggerated vigor. With water from a nearby stream he washed down his breakfast, then resumed his journey.

  He tried to muster up his enthusiasm for what new adventure lay in store for him by whistling a tune, but it was dry and stilted. A pall hung over his mood, which he could not shake. A bird winged overhead, and immediately the thought of the phoenix, feng-huang, returned to him. And with the thought came the bittersweet memory of Hsi-chen’s gentle, lovely voice.

  But suddenly a different connotation of the poem she had quoted flooded him. This was no noble creature who magically touched lives and left blessings scattered after it. Rather it was an animal that came to a place, took all it could from those who dwelled there, and then left them to their own “regrets” with no thought but for itself, no thought but for the satisfaction of its own needs, its own wants.

  A parasite! That’s what the phoenix was. Never giving, always taking, always in search of his own pleasure—giving no thought for the sadness he left in his wake.

  Now a great regret seizes upon my mind—

  If only I had my home in a different place!

  But what could he do? He surely could not stay in a place just to make someone else happy! That would be no good for either of them. Anyway, Hsi-chen understood. She knew he must move.

  Yet all at once Robbie was not sure he understood. He was always moving, leaving, going. But did his leaving the mission really have anything to do with his wandering spirit? That certainly made it easier to carry out when the time came. But was there something else? Yes—he had been uncomfortable there, out of place. Wallace’s way of doing things was not only alien to Robbie, it was distasteful. There was only so much intolerance and self-righteous religiosity he could put up with, especially from a man like Wallace, who could talk easily about so-called loving behavior. He expected perfection from a youngster like Coombs, while he himself presented nothing but a harsh, domineering character to the world. Now that Wallace was on his mind, Robbie was glad he was out of that place!

  He wondered just what Wallace would have done in the same situation he and Coombs had found themselves. He could talk about loving his enemies, but when had he ever done so?

  As he thought about Wallace, Robbie forced himself to see only the negative. His worldly vision could probe no deeper than the mere surface, and had no capacity to perceive the spirit of man—Wallace’s or his own. To have allowed himself to see more would have been to admit a serious flaw in the reasoning to which he had become accustomed. And it would have indicated an error in his decision to leave the mission.

  Without realizing it on the conscious level, Robbie was confused. Something undeniably drew him to the mission. Was it merely the person of Hsi-chen? Yet something repelled him as well, just as strongly. Was that only the person of Wallace? How could he be both so drawn that he longed to turn around and go back, and yet afraid to do so?

  Afraid. Was that really it? Then it was more than Wallace himself pushing him away! When had he felt this way before?

  With the question, Robbie’s mind suddenly filled with the stinging memory of the face of the child in Calcutta. He would never be able to forget those huge eyes that pierced his very soul! He had been oddly afraid of her also, and when the guardian had urged him to visit the orphanage, he had resisted—perhaps too strongly. What was it that had frightened
him then?

  This was no good, he told himself! He had to get rid of the plague of such self-defeating thoughts. He had to inject some realism into this introspective mood, and despite what the Vicar said as they struggled near death in the China Sea, he didn’t want to get used to that particular emotion. ’Tis best to forget this line of thinking altogether!

  His strides gradually became long and quicker. If he could do it no other way, he would physically beat these ideas from his mind. Suddenly his resolve to get to Shanghai became all the more intensified. What he needed was to get aboard a ship! A place where he belonged, a place he understood, with men who spoke his language, liked what he liked, laughed at what he laughed at! And this time there would be no Pike or Vicar to muddle things up. It would be grand—just like the old days!

  It hardly took thirty minutes at his rapid pace, in the pervading heat of the late morning, before Robbie was nearly exhausted. Still he pushed himself, mile after mile—always thinking how far he was now from the mission, never thinking how close he might be to Shanghai. Once or twice he paused for a rest, but each time his stop was brief because of the unwanted thoughts that continually tried to push themselves into his brain.

  By late afternoon he could go no farther. His legs ached, and his head throbbed from the constant, unrelenting sun. Wearily he pushed on to the next village, which was about a half a mile distant, hoping there might somehow provide a respite in his journey.

  It was very much like Wukiang, though perhaps a bit larger. If only he could find a roadside inn to stay in for the night! In his fatigued brain he did not find himself troubled by his financial straits nearly so much as by his inability to communicate. If he could just make himself understood, he reasoned, there would be some way he’d be able to wrangle a meal and a bed.

  As the narrow road widened toward the center of the village, Robbie tried to stop several passers-by, but none understood a word of English. The women looked frightened of him and hastened away without even pausing to listen. In all his travels, he had never been so far from a port of call. He had thus never before experienced the feeling of being utterly alone, completely stranded and helpless in an altogether foreign place. The feeling was now strong, and not altogether comforting. He was isolated, utterly alone. He wondered how Elliot had made it.

  Robbie hailed a man pushing a vegetable cart.

  “I am looking for a place to stay,” he said, gesturing with every manner of hand and facial motion to embellish his words and hopefully give them meaning.

  The farmer gave him a suspicious, not altogether friendly look, mumbled something unintelligible in Chinese and hurried on.

  Every person Robbie tried offered a similar response. Even if this little place had something resembling an inn, which he had not seen, it would do him little good if he wasn’t able to communicate some kind of barter for a room. Money, he had learned long ago, was the universal language. But he had none of it to flash around to encourage a more willing response.

  With every step Robbie’s legs grew weaker. He had covered more than thirty-five miles in the last twenty hours, and the strain was now taking its toll, even on one as strong as Robbie Taggart. He had all but resigned himself to another night alongside the road, but at this point even the steps required to get out of the village and to some deserted spot seemed more than he wanted to think of.

  At last he reached the outskirts of town. In the distance, and off the path fifty or so yards, he spied a long flight of steps leading up a slight hill to a temple of some kind at the top. It wouldn’t hurt to rest there a moment before he continued on his way.

  Robbie turned off the road, took the path to the right, and climbed the steps part of the way to a point where they were shaded by the walls of the temple. There he sank down with a grateful sigh. It was hardly a surprise that he began to doze off. Twice he jerked himself awake, but each time it proved more difficult to rouse himself, and at length sleep completely won control.

  He did not waken again until night had fallen. Some three hours had passed. Suddenly he jerked up with a start. Two men stood hovering over him; one had a hand near his rucksack. In the bewilderment of a sleep-excited brain, Robbie jerked it away and tried to stand.

  “Get out of here, you thieves!” he yelled, despite the fact that they couldn’t understand him. “You’ve come to the wrong man for that!”

  Robbie’s form had been imposing enough asleep on the temple steps. But awake it was far more than the two thieves wanted to tangle with in a fight. They turned on their heels and fled down the steps. Robbie rubbed his hands through his hair and shook the remainder of sleep from his brain; he was about to get up and continue his journey when a voice from above stopped him.

  “If you would like a proper rest, hsien-sheng, sir,” said a man standing near the temple door, “you may enter this humble dwelling.”

  “You speak English!” exclaimed Robbie with wonder as he spun around, almost as if he had encountered some magical being.

  “Only very poorly, I am afraid,” returned the man. He bowed deeply, and Robbie could see atop his shaven head rows of scars, from some ordination rite he supposed. It was apparent, from this and from his dark flowing robes, that this must be a temple priest. “Come,” he added in a welcoming but subdued tone.

  Robbie hesitated. A temple, even a pagan one, was not exactly the sort of place where he would have chosen to spend the night. But the thought of a bed away from the elements, perhaps a bite or two of food, and the possibility of someone to aid him in this foreign land—it was all too much to pass up.

  Therefore he followed the man up the remainder of the temple steps and through the massive door, actually but a gate in the high wall surrounding the buildings. They passed through a large courtyard, which was the focal point of the temple complex, around which were situated the several smaller buildings comprising the whole. Even in the dark shadows of evening, Robbie could tell that the courtyard was lovely and peaceful and well groomed by the sweet fragrance of cherry and lotus blossoms carried on a gentle breeze that rustled the leaves of several dwarfed, well-sculpted trees. He was led to the left of the courtyard, down an open corridor that skirted the garden, and finally to a room no larger than a sitting room. Sparsely furnished, it had only a long low table in its center. There was not even a rug or mat on the hard, stone floor.

  “I will bring you something to eat,” said the priest, and before Robbie could protest or offer a word of thanks, the priest disappeared behind a curtained doorway.

  Robbie walked idly around the room while he waited, although there was little to arrest his attention. In a few minutes the man returned carrying a tray that he set on the table, motioning for Robbie to sit. The floor was hard and cold, but Robbie had eaten meals under worse circumstances. He lowered himself to the table, where he had some difficulty arranging his long legs before he could turn his attention to the meal, which consisted of rice, dried fruit, bread, and tea.

  “We live very simply here,” the priest explained. “And, of course, we are vegetarians.”

  “This is wonderful,” replied Robbie enthusiastically. “I am most grateful. I have no money, and don’t know how long my provisions would have lasted. I am more than willing to work in return for your hospitality.”

  “The aim of hospitality is not the seeking of payment,” replied his host. “Now eat, and if you would like, we can talk. My name is Hui K’o. I am a humble priest of Buddha.”

  “And I am Robbie Taggart, British sailor.”

  “You are very far from the sea.”

  Robbie launched into a brief account of how he came to be in inland China.

  “So, you come from the mission at Wukiang,” said Hui K’o thoughtfully.

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “I have had some dealings with them.”

  “I’m surprised. I would have thought it was much farther away than that. I’ve been traveling hard since last night.”

  “You were on foot?” aske
d the priest.

  Robbie nodded.

  “That explains it. By water your journey would have taken less than half a day, with the right winds and currents. In the morning I can direct you to a boat for your return trip.”

  “Oh, I’m not going back.” The words were spoken quickly, defensively, and Robbie regretted them immediately. “That is, I’m bound for Shanghai,” he added.

  “You have come out of your way for Shanghai,” said Hui K’o in a simple voice that seemed to hold deeper meaning than was apparent on the surface.

  The priest poured tea into two porcelain cups, then, setting down the teapot, folded his hands together and thoughtfully tapped his lips. At length he spoke. “You were not happy at the mission?”

  From anyone else the question would have seemed out of place, even impertinent. But it was only fitting that this Chinese sage, not one to be satisfied with trivial small talk, should thrust directly to the heart of a conversation. It did not escape Robbie’s attention that this priest of Buddha was not unlike the austere missionary doctor in this respect.

  “It has nothing to do with happiness,” answered Robbie. “I simply didn’t fit in there. I’m a sailor and they were missionaries. I guess that’s all there was to it.”

  “And sailors do not need spiritual things?”

  “Maybe they do. I don’t know. Let’s just say I didn’t get along with this particular missionary.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Hui K’o. “I had occasion to meet the Doctor Wallace some time ago.”

  “Oh?”

  “I had a young pupil who became ill. He was near death when I finally knew my own skill would not avail him. So in desperation I sought the doctor’s assistance.”

  Hui K’o paused for a brief moment, as if the conjuring of the memory had taken him somewhat by surprise. Then he went on.

  “The doctor sat with the boy for two days, using his medical skill and his prayer, and in two days the boy was not only on the way to recovery, but he had also espoused the doctor’s Christianity.”