On the first day out they fell back quite naturally into the routine they had followed during their voyage to San Francisco; but A-lu-te and Gregory soon realised that the substitution in their party of Wu-ming for Tsai-Ping would make it difficult for them to resume fully the long uninterrupted sessions of companionable study they had previously enjoyed. The love-lorn Wu-ming now had no duties of any kind to engage him, and for A-lu-te to have excluded him on all but special occasions from her private stern lounge might easily have been interpreted as a wish to be with Gregory alone for reasons far removed from the improvement of her mind.
In consequence he had to be given, more or less, the freedom of her sanctuary; and while he appeared quite content to sit there for hours in silence, just gazing at her with his widely-spaced eyes while she discussed English gardens, Roman history, the First World War, and scores of other subjects with Gregory, her unwelcome admirer’s presence was a source of secret irritation to them both.
It was on the third morning after they had left San Francisco that a mild excitement occurred to provide a topic of conversation throughout the ship. The previous night a stowaway had been caught while stealing food from the pantry of the saloon. Ah-moi told them at lunch time that on being questioned the man had made the excuse usual in such cases when a ship was bound for China—he had been beset with a persistent urge to visit the graves of his ancestors and was too poor to pay for a passage.
A-lu-te asked what would be done with him, and the Captain replied, ‘He has been sent below to earn his keep as a stoker.’
‘Will you allow him to land when we reach China?’ Gregory inquired.
Ah-moi shook his head. ‘No; and even if he had chosen some other ship in which to stow away he would not be permitted to do so. He would be detained until he could be put ashore once more at the port in which he had made his illegal embarkation. As it is, he will see neither China nor America again. During several weeks on board it is inevitable that he should learn from the crew something of our island. We cannot allow even second-hand talk of its existence to get about, so we have no option but to take him back with us.’
‘This is by no means the first time such a case has occurred,’ Kâo added. ‘Chinamen in foreign ports always assume that a ship manned by Chinese is about to return to China; so from time to time stowaways are discovered in our trading vessel. Our method of dealing with them is quite simple. On their arrival in the island they are given a course of the drug which you would have been given but for A-lu-te’s intervention. Once it has blotted from their minds all memory of the past, they become quite content to spend the rest of their lives helping to man one of the junks in our fishing fleet.’
Gregory’s first reaction to this was that to inflict on a man what amounted to a life sentence for a comparatively trivial offence seemed harsh in the extreme; but on consideration he realised that if the Council of Mandarins were to protect their people from corruption, and their miniature State from outside interference, they had no alternative other than to silence dangerous tongues in this by no means inhuman manner; so he dismissed the matter from his mind.
He had, in fact, entirely forgotten the existence of the stowaway when, three nights later, a chance encounter recalled it to him. The time was just after midnight; A-lu-te, Kâo and Wu-ming had gone to their cabins, and one of the stewards was putting out the lights in the upper deck lounge as the last of the officers who had been chatting there left it; but Gregory did not feel sleepy so he decided to stretch his legs for a while on the starboard promenade deck.
The officer of the watch, the quartermaster and the lookout were now the only people remaining above decks, and none of them was visible to Gregory. It was very quiet and the only sound that broke the stillness was the hissing of the water along the ship’s sides as she ploughed her way steadily through the sea. There was no moon and drifting clouds made the usually bright starlight fitful and uncertain.
Gregory had made only two turns up and down when an iron doorway forward of the bridge swung open, a man staggered from it, lurched to the rail, and clung there. As the watch had just been changed Gregory assumed the man to be an engine-room hand who had come up for a breath of air before turning in, and for a moment thought he might only have imagined his unsteady gait owing to the uncertain light. But, as he continued his advance under the dark arch formed by the starboard side of the bridge, the man gave a loud groan, let go the rail and collapsed upon the deck. Stepping quickly up to him, Gregory said in Chinese:
‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong with you?’
The man did not reply. He had fainted. Yet even as Gregory asked the question he saw the answer to it. A break in the clouds let the starlight through to reveal that the man was naked from the waist up and that his back was crisscrossed with angry weals, some of which were still bleeding. It was clear that within the past half-hour he had been most brutally beaten.
Stooping, Gregory grasped his shoulder, pulled him into a sitting position, then thrust his head down between his knees. After a moment or two he groaned again and muttered in English with a touch of American accent:
‘I can’t! I can’t! I’m not strong enough.’
While man-handling him Gregory had already observed that he was of slight build, not much more than five feet seven in height, and still probably in his early twenties. Having given him a minute to recover he said:
‘I’ve never heard any of the hands speak English, so I take it you are the stowaway. What’s your name?’
Without looking up, the youngster nodded. ‘Yes, Sir. I am that unfortunate person; and my name is Foo Wang.’
‘Who has been ill-treating you like this?’
‘The chief stoker. He says that slowness in one holds up the whole gang. But I have not been used to manual labour. Towards the end of each watch my strength begins to fail, then he beats me.’
Unsteadily the boy got to his feet. Taking him by the arm, Gregory said, ‘You’d better come to my cabin, and I’ll do what I can for that back of yours.’ Then he led him aft.
Having told Foo to wash the grime from his face and hands at the basin, Gregory went to the galley and dissolved a little cooking salt in warm water. Returning, he gently cleansed the stowaway’s back with the solution, patted it dry, and anointed the weals with ointment; then he told him to sit down and asked him:
‘Is it true that you smuggled yourself on board because you wanted to visit the graves of your ancestors?’
‘Not my ancestors, Sir, but those of my parents. They were very poor and both of them died with many others in our village from a typhus epidemic, when I was quite young. As often happens in such cases, all the poorer victims of the epidemic were put in a row into a common grave, and that has always worried me. An American missionary took pity on me and later sent me to be educated in the United States. By great economy I have managed to save a little money. Enough to give my parents a respectable burial, but not enough also to pay for a passage back to China. That was my reason for stowing away.’
Having regard to the veneration for their parents which is second nature to the Chinese, the account Foo Wang gave of himself was a highly plausible one, and the only thing which might have caused the least doubt about it was that he did not look like the child of poor parents. Now that he had cleaned himself up and could be seen under electric light, his appearance was much more pleasing than might have been expected. Although he was of modest height his limbs were well proportioned, his features delicate, his eyes intelligent and his hands well moulded. It then occurred to Gregory that it was probably these very attractions which had caused the missionary to single him out, and give him a far better chance in life than fell to the lot of the vast majority of Chinese orphans.
After a moment, Gregory asked, ‘What led you to choose this ship?’
‘Simply a belief that she was bound for China, Sir; but oh, how I wish now that I had waited for some other.’
‘Why? You could not have hoped to make
so long a voyage without being discovered. In any ship you would have been made to work your passage; and as stowaways are in no position to protest against harsh treatment, you might equally well have had the ill luck to find yourself at the mercy of a brutal taskmaster. You must have realised the risk you were running.’
‘I did, Sir; and it isn’t that. There is something queer about this ship that I don’t understand, and it frightens me. The crew are different from any Chinamen I have ever met, either among those who have travelled widely or others who have never before left China. They will say nothing of the part of China from which they or their families come. None of them either drinks or smokes. There is no radio in the fo’c’sle, and except for sending signals they do not appear to realise that any other use can be made of wireless. Their speech too is neither exactly dialect nor quite the sort of bastard Mandarin that most poor men use, but a mixture of both with many old-fashioned expressions thrown in. They seem quite happy, but everything about them is unusual and reminiscent of a past generation—even their clothes. At times during these last three days I have become quite terrified, from the feeling that I must be dead and am now a spirit doing penance in some strange other world. Talking to you, and your great kindness to me, has reassured me upon that. But tell me, I beg, are we really on our way to China?’
Gregory nodded, and, refraining from telling him that he was not to be allowed to land when they got there, said: ‘In due course I expect you will learn why the crew differ quite a bit from any other Chinese seamen you have come across; but for the time being I think the fewer questions you ask them about themselves the better. Anyhow, while we are on our way to China you have no cause to be frightened of anything worse happening to you, than you have experienced up to now.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’ Foo stood up with the polite intention of showing that he did not wish to outstay his welcome, and added with a bow, ‘Your assurance that we are really going to China is a great comfort, and will give me new courage to bear my present hard lot.’
As Gregory got to his feet, he said: ‘Tell me, what was your job before you left San Francisco?’
Foo hesitated only a second, then replied, ‘I was a clerk, Sir, in a surveyor’s office.’
‘Have you had experience in any other kind of work?’
‘I am not a bad mechanic, and for a time I acted as chauffeur to an old lady who lived up on Nob Hill.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I have sometimes taken night work as a barman. People are kind enough to say that my Old Fashioneds are very good.’
Gregory smiled. ‘You make my mouth water. But I’m afraid we couldn’t find much use for a shaker of cocktails as, apart from carrying light wines, this is a dry ship. Bar-tending is not far off waiting, though; so I take it you could do that.’
Foo’s pleasant young face suddenly lit up. ‘Do … do you mean, Sir, that you will try to get me taken out of the stoke-hold?’
‘I’m only a passenger, so I can promise nothing; but I’ll see what I can do. Now off you go, and try to keep your chin up.’
With many expressions of gratitude Foo bowed himself away, and Gregory began to undress. As he did so, he felt that he had been rather rash to raise the young man’s hopes at all, for he knew only too well the strange contradictions of the Chinese character, which could make the same man the very essence of kindness about one thing and callous almost beyond belief about another, so good natured as Captain Ah-moi appeared to be, his reactions to a request for Foo’s transfer were quite unpredictable.
However, Gregory was determined to do his utmost, not only for Foo’s sake but for his own. Since they had sailed from San Francisco, Wu-ming had shown him no open hostility, but he felt certain that it was only latent; and the curious sixth sense, which had often stood him in good stead, repeatedly warned him that at any time, driven to desperation by A-lu-te’s obvious preference for his company, the Chinaman might make another attempt upon his life. The strain of living from day to day under such a menace was considerable, and he felt that it might at least be eased a little if he had someone like young Foo, who, bound to him by gratitude, could be relied on to act as watch-dog should he find that the lock on his cabin door had been tampered with, or have any other reason to think that Wu-ming meant to attack him while he slept.
Next morning, having waited patiently for a suitable opportunity, he tackled the Captain and told him of his encounter with the stowaway. As he had feared might prove the case, Ah-moi appeared quite unmoved by Foo’s suffering at the hands of the chief stoker, and simply said that he never interfered with his petty officers provided they did not become slack.
Gregory was shrewd enough not to press the point, but skilfully shifted the attack to another angle. He said, quite untruthfully, that he had always previously travelled with a personal servant, and on the trip to San Francisco had greatly missed having one. When they sailed again he had hoped that Tsai-Ping’s man, Che-khi, might be given to him, but he had been taken over by Wu-ming; so he still had to brush his own clothes and perform other menial tasks unfitting for a gentleman. As the stowaway was superfluous to the ship’s company, and a type that could be trained to such duties, could he not have the use of him?
That put the matter on an entirely different footing. Ah-moi both liked Gregory and, in spite of his curiously anomalous position, regarded him as an equal. He at once apologised for his lack of thought in having allowed his passenger to suffer such inconvenience for so long, and promised to give orders for Foo to be put at his disposal.
After lunch the chief steward brought Foo, now dressed in a suit of white drills somewhat too large for him, along to Gregory’s cabin. There, Gregory explained his new duties, and the beaming young man set about tidying his things with a will.
During the six days that followed, no event occurred to mar the serenity of the voyage. For hours each day, while A-lu-te talked with Gregory, played Mah-jong with Kâo, or flirted mildly with one or other of the officers, Wu-ming sat, making only an occasional contribution to the conversation but all the time devouring her with a wide-eyed unwinking stare. By now she had got so used to his obsession for her that she was no longer irritated by it, and treated him with the casual kindness that one extends to a half-witted child. But Gregory did not regard him in that way at all; and, although their relationship continued outwardly quite friendly, he watched the Export Manager’s comings and goings like a lynx.
Foo had been acting as Gregory’s servant for a week when, on their second Wednesday at sea, as was now his custom while his master was changing for dinner he brought him the nearest approach he could make to a cocktail. It was made of Californian white wine and fresh orange juice with a slice of a green lime. Setting it down on the fixed dressing-table, he left the cabin.
Having finished brushing his hair Gregory picked up the cocktail to drink it. He had already taken half a mouthful when he saw that a mosquito had alighted on the back of his hand. Setting the glass down quickly, he gave the insect a smack that killed it just as it stung him.
Next moment he felt a burning sensation in his chest. His eyes bulged and he gasped for air. From the mirror his own horribly distorted face grimaced at him. Clutching his chest, he reeled away towards the bed and fell upon it. As his sight dimmed and failed, as though he had suddenly been struck with blindness, one grim thought flashed through his mind.
Wittingly or unwittingly, the very man whom he had counted upon to help protect him if called upon to do so had brought him poison.
10
The Poisoned Cocktail
As Gregory squirmed upon the bed he knew that his only hope lay in getting rid of the poison he had swallowed. With a great effort he managed to sit up and push his finger down his throat. He was sick on the floor; but that did not relieve the tearing pains in his chest, and his stomach now felt as if it were on fire.
Groaning he fell back again. As he had been sitting sideways on the bed his head came down with a hard thud agai
nst the wall of the cabin. What the poison had begun, the blow completed. He lost consciousness of his surroundings, although he still knew himself to be moaning and twisting in agony.
For how long he lay as though in a black pit, submerged under waves of pain, he had no idea. It was the sound of an exclamation which made him open his eyes. He could see again, but tears and sweat running into them partially obscured his vision. As through a mist he saw Wu-ming’s face poised about eighteen inches above his own.
The sight of the Chinaman bending above him jerked his mind back into full consciousness. Gripped by renewed terror of death he stared upward. It flashed upon him that there could be only one explanation for Wu-ming’s presence. He must have come to make sure that his victim was dead, and by taking away the cocktail glass remove the only evidence that he had been murdered. And now, finding that his enemy was still alive, but helpless, surely he would seize the opportunity to finish him off while he had him at his mercy.
Gregory’s immediate impulse was to thrust up his hands, grasp Wu-ming’s arms and, while grappling with him, shout for help; but he managed to check it. His throat was so exhausted from the effects of the poison that in a fight the odds must prove heavily against him. But he could feel some strength ebbing back into his limbs, and fear was making his brain work swiftly.
Frantically he wondered what means the jealousy-crazed Chinaman would use to kill him. It was very unlikely that so sophisticated a man would carry a knife; and, if he were, to use it would be to betray himself as the murderer. The same objection applied to strangulation, for it was certain that the marks on his victim’s throat would be noticed and give away the fact that death had not been caused by a stroke or sudden seizure. Suffocation with a pillow would lead to blackening of the face, so also cast on him immediate suspicion. But there remained the posion. If he could manage to force his victim to swallow even another half mouthful, that would probably do the trick.
The Island Where Time Stands Still Page 18