The Secret Mandarin

by Sara Sheridan

  The next morning, wrapped against the winter weather, we set off across the hills with the gun. Beneath us we could see villages scattered in the monastery’s wake and lakes on the valley floor where the locals fished for ling, using tubs rather than conventional boats. The tubs bobbed on the water, although they appeared tricky to steer, causing one or two crashes, which we witnessed from a distance.

  The hills near the monastery were verdant even in winter and it was clear to see that in summertime it might be difficult to pass in some areas, the plants overgrowing the pathways. There were Japanese Cedar trees, figs and camphor plants. Sing Hoo dutifully took cuttings for the vasculum case while the three young monks who were accompanying us, keen to see Robert’s gun in action, directed us along the best paths in search of the boar. After we had been out for three or four hours we stopped to refresh ourselves with fried vegetable dumplings that the monks had carefully packed in a wicker box. The men prayed before eating, simply thanking their god for the sustenance. Sing Hoo bowed his head and joined in.

  ‘We never say grace these days,’ I said as it occurred to me.

  ‘You? Grace?’ Robert teased.

  ‘I know, I know. It is a nicer custom here though. I am at home with it.’

  I was making my penances, I suppose.

  I took my dumpling and wandered towards the edge of the slope to peer over onto the pass below where I fell low to the ground, motioning to the others. Beneath us, a short way off, there were half a dozen boars, black and grunting quietly as they foraged in the undergrowth below. We had a perfect shot.

  ‘Shhhh.’ I motioned the others over.

  Robert took aim. He fired twice quickly, killing one animal and wounding another as, squealing, it tried to run off into the trees. The other beasts fled. Beside me one young monk was jumping up and down with his hand to his mouth. The others looked equally shocked at Robert’s crack shot and stared on in admiration. Although Robert had explained what would happen when he fired his weapon, the effect was far more exciting than they had evidently expected. The bearers also looked impressed and I thought it was no bad thing that they should see Robert’s prowess with his weapon. Having made the kill we were too far away to track the boar any longer, for the herd had a head start on the lower pass, but Robert let the monks fire the gun into the earth, all being unwilling to fire it into anything deemed to be living, even a tree.

  Sing Hoo and one of the bearers went to fetch the kill, stringing the carcass onto a stripped bough and carrying it over their shoulders. Hiking home, our men made for the wood outside the monastery and started a fire on which to roast their meat. Robert and I left them to this feast and proceeded inside where a vegetarian dinner was prepared and we were welcomed. Fragrant rice and a dozen exotic-looking vegetable dishes lay on matting alongside cups of hot tea flavoured with flowers. I sank down and was passed a bowl and chopsticks, ready to eat after a long day of walking and a welcome return to normality. The young priests chattered with their friends, eager to share their news and mimicking the gun’s action. Robert sat directly opposite, already deep in conversation with one of the older men. This fellow, it turned out, had started his religious life at Tien T’ang Monastery, where many centuries ago tea was first exported to Japan by travelling monks who had tasted it on a pilgrimage.

  ‘To Japan?’ Robert was saying. ‘What manner of tea was it?’

  As I felt the hot drink revive me I found that I could follow Robert’s thoughts, his line of questioning. What had the Japanese monks discovered? How did they process the tea leaves? I could anticipate each question before he asked it, and listened, rapt, to the old monk’s replies. The image of the map we carried appeared in my mind’s eye and I found myself wondering how long it might take us from Hong Kong to Japan when Robert met my eyes, seeing my idea clearly, and shook his head, smiling at my enthusiasm.

  ‘Not this trip,’ he murmured.

  We passed a week at the monastery. Our bearer’s leg finally recovered properly and, in fact, so did our spirits. Robert itemised his plants and, along with the tallow, figs and camphor from the hills, he found other fine specimens in the monastery’s grounds.

  ‘I think these will be the first plants to go to the west from this particular region,’ he said. ‘No one else has ventured here.’

  Foraging daily, he found thistles exactly like those in Scotland, and also abelia, red spiroea and some more hydrangea to add to the other seeds, cuttings and herbarium specimens. Between us, we put everything in a special case and then duplicated it so that when we came to send it home two ships would bear the responsibility and the risk would be halved.

  ‘You have become adept,’ Robert said.

  I certainly knew what I had to do. I liked that now I could set up a vegetable garden or a flower plot if I wanted. I liked that I recognised the different varieties of seed and could find the North Star, or even on a cloudless night tell which way was home from the lichens growing on the bark of the trees.

  ‘Do you think it really is Christmas?’ I asked.

  Robert considered. ‘Very close. I wish I had kept a log in more detail. Last year we never marked it together. I ate at the mess in Chusan. This year it is your choice, Mary. We can have Christmas here any day that you like. In fact,’ he smirked like a schoolboy, ‘we can have several.’

  As I laid out the specimens I sang carols: ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ and ‘Silent Night’. Robert joined in, his voice strong and cheerful. When we had finished with the plants, he stood up and bowed with a flourish.

  ‘Might I ask for the pleasure of this dance?’ he said. ‘It is the Christmas Ball, after all.’

  ‘At the Royal Horticultural Society?’ I teased.

  ‘Is your card quite full?’

  ‘Of course. But I do happen to have one space. Now, in fact.’

  He took my hand and led me to the ‘dance floor’, pretending to listen to the music.

  ‘Ah,’ he said to my giggling, ‘a waltz!’

  And we careened around to Robert humming an orchestral waltzing tune, which had been a particular favourite before we left London. We must have looked a sight. Two Chinese gentlemen waltzing around between the herbarium specimens. When the Chopin waltz had finished I was quite flushed. I curtseyed low, imagining myself in a beautiful, wide skirt that billowed around me, more fancy and fitting for the occasion. The clink of champagne flutes and the diamond brilliance of the chandeliers seemed not far off.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  Robert helped me up and kissed my hand before he led me back to the fireside. ‘You looked radiant tonight, my dear,’ he jested.

  I pretended to take a fan from my pocket and spread it over my face so only my eyes could be seen.

  ‘You are too kind.’

  ‘You have been so brave, Mary,’ Robert said. ‘And I want you to know that I appreciate…Well, I appreciate it all.’

  From his pocket, he handed me a box, a small ebony one.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said. ‘I had brought this to give you anyway. It seems the right time.’

  ‘Robert.’ I was shocked.

  I had not thought to celebrate and the idea that Robert had even planned a Christmas gift showed unexpected foresight. I had never known him to care for such personal touches before. I fumbled to open the little box. Inside, nestling against a small piece of fuchsia silk there was a freshwater pearl mounted on a gold chain.

  ‘I thought you could wear it. Underneath,’ he said, gesturing with some embarrassment at my mandarin-collared silk top.

  I put the chain round my neck. It was wonderfully kind of Robert.

  ‘Door jair,’ I said. Thank you for the gift. And I bowed, tears thickening the back of my throat. I would be dead if it wasn’t for Robert, I was sure of it.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he reached towards me. ‘It is only to thank you.’

  ‘I am honoured,’ I said, taking his hand. ‘Truly. It is beautiful. I will wear it always.’

  I
wiped away my tears. Things had certainly changed. For better and for worse.

  I loved our time at the monastery, short as it was. I spent my days talking to the monks and helping where I could with their tasks. One named Tang, an elderly priest with a fat belly and sparkling eyes, particularly interested me. He spent a large portion of his day meditating, rocking as he prayed, but when he was not engaged in such spiritual pursuits his main duty was to plan the monastery’s meals. As such he knew the stores of rice and flour, what vegetables and fruits were in season and the traditions of feast and fast days and how to accommodate them. This seemed to endlessly delight him and when he received news of the day’s production of bean curd, the preservation of eggs daubed in flavourings and buried, or how the soya sauce was fermenting, he would joyfully reel off the dishes that were soon to be prepared from each ingredient. The monastery fed hundreds each day: quite apart from the monks themselves and the occupants of the monastery hospital, alms were given usually in the form of rice to the poor who came to beg at the gates. Tang surveyed our supplies and ordered some sacks from his storeroom to augment our provisions for the journey. Robert offered to pay him, but it seemed the monastery was happy enough to gift us the food and see us on our way.

  When it came time to leave I was sad, for unlike Ningpo or Hong Kong where I might well return, I knew that in all likelihood I would never see the monastery again. Robert had spent two days on the monks’ farm and presented the gardeners with various seeds. These were for fruit trees they had never before cultivated. He also discussed with them at length an irrigation programme they would put into action in the spring and drew diagrams to help with the process.

  As we wound down the tree-lined avenue in the early morning sunshine the monks rang bells in our honour and the crisp winter breeze invigorated our stride. It had been a wonderful Christmas but we still had a long way to go.

  The sedan chairs had been strengthened, for the hilly ground was harsh on them. The joints had been reinforced and the sticks doubled in the monastery workshop, but due to the terrain I had not expected that we would use them routinely until we were well inside Fokien province. However, Robert had other plans. On the third day he stopped the party and insisted that we make a show to approach the border crossing between Kiang See province and Fokien up ahead, where there was an armed guard. Most people travelled on foot unattended, so our party, with two sedan chairs in use, would make quite an impression with the soldiers and the plan was that thus intimidated they should allow us to pass unmolested.

  Robert and I mounted the chairs and covered ourselves in two sumptuous rugs which he had stowed for the purpose. Slowly our party limped towards the outpost.

  ‘This will work well,’ Robert said proudly.

  In the event I wonder if the guards noticed us at all, for one was asleep at the crossing station and the other was engrossed in conversation with an older lady I assumed to be his mother.

  ‘We might as well have ridden through with a company of the Highlanders!’ I joked when we stopped two li up the road and loaded the chairs back on the carts.

  ‘Lazy!’ Robert snorted. ‘Lucky for us.’

  It still seemed to me comical that he considered laziness normal in Chinese soldiers as if our solid British troops never idled, all for duty and honour instead. I think it is true to say that in all our wanderings Robert never lost his sense of the Chinese being a different species and never saw them even as people really. It was not in his nature to identify the common concerns rather than the obvious differences. Perhaps that protected him, I am not sure. But however different he considered the Chinese there is no question that their knives were sharp enough to pierce our skins and, had they known of us, those very same soldiers would have tracked us down and killed us.

  In Fokien province there were a deal of hostelries by the roadside and when we reached the Bohea Mountains, which ran like a spine across the north of the region, we knew that we were over halfway. By Chinese New Year the weather had eased once more and we celebrated in a tiny village on the north side of the mountain range where there were musical entertainments and a procession with beautiful red and gold lanterns.

  Never had I been anywhere so bleak and so wild. As the weather became warmer the snow and ice began to drip, shifting uneasily against the emerging earth. We were travelling over perilous ground. The thin, sludgy paths were overhung by snowy outcrops and we had to make progress carefully every step lest the snow should shatter above us and fall in deadly shards. One mule was almost swept away in this manner and it was only the sheer speed of one of the bearers’ wits that saved her. It took half an hour to induce the terrified animal to move on again. I was shaken myself.

  Most nights we camped, with the men mounting a watch by the fire, a shift of two hours’ duration from which both Robert and I were excused, though for his part Robert still got up two or three times a night to check our safety. He slept with the gun loaded beside him and scouted for animal tracks rather than flowers. In the lowland safety of Ningpo I had wished for snow tigers and mountain bears. Here in the cold, cloudless nights I shivered at the thought. We seemed isolated and vulnerable. An animal could rip through the party with vicious ease and we had only one rifle and a roaring fire to protect us, for I was sure that the sabre-like knives carried by the men would be little use against animal ferocity. To get close enough to strike would mean fierce injury at least.

  Robert found animal tracks all right, though always mottled at the edges, days old. Once we came upon a grisly, blood-stained, bone-strewn arena in the snow where two creatures had fought and one had been eaten by the other. It would take some time, I realised, before the evidence of the massacre either melted into the earth or became overgrown. The winter, it occurred to me, held on to atrocities, which lay unhealed and silent till the spring could melt them. We had left one of our own in our wake.

  Now and again we came across a settlement with an inn. At Chin-hu it was the custom for men to bring their animals inside and the rooms were packed with goats and hunting dogs and even a cow or two. There was little food and no choice on the menu. I found it difficult to stomach the whole roasted pig—an animal cooked with its entrails intact, the belly sliced open with a flourish. I longed for the simple dumplings that Tang would have ordered at the monastery, for his spring greens and snow peas which had arrived piled on blue plates, steaming and delicious.

  As we came, finally, to the south side of the slopes the trees were in bud and the earth waterlogged with melted snow. The carts got caught in the mud and we slowed even further, each mile an enormous effort. We berated the mules, pleaded, cajoled and beat them. We had to stop to mend the wheels at least twice a day. It was exhausting and very damp. My skin began to itch and my feet, already blistered and painful, felt as if they were set to melt into the sludge. It was miserable. Nothing we possessed was dry and we smelt of sweat and mildew. Each day I woke believing we would reach our destination by the afternoon. I dreamt of bathing, stepping out of the warm water and patting my skin dry. I dreamt of sleeping in a warm bed. Hill after hill, slope after slope, step after step.

  Mostly we pressed on no matter the rain but once or twice we stopped and sheltered, for it drove too hard and we could thole it no longer. During one storm we came to a halt under the trees and found a band of other travellers—impoverished migrant workers heading south for the tea season where they might pick up casual work on the farms. Some travelled shoeless with a blanket slung over the shoulder. All were thin and cold. Travelling by foot, with far less to carry, they easily overtook us on the road and Sing Hoo informed us one man had told him the farms were a good week’s journey and for us, of course, longer.

  We rose in the darkness and made camp in the darkness, pressing on absolutely determined. Robert pushed me to travel by chair but the men were so exhausted that I would not hear of it and, besides, it would only slow us further. Every inch of me ached, every step an effort. By the last days I tasted nothing and I did not dr
eam. We became a silent band of travellers for there was nothing to say and words were only an effort. Wang and Sing Hoo had long since ceased their usual bickering.

  Then joyously, on the ninth day after we sheltered, we came upon a rice paddy cut into the hillside. By the tenth day there were several. Robert consulted his maps and announced we were very close. By our best reckoning we had left Hwuy Chow Foo in early November and it was now almost March. We had wintered for four months in the hills and were worse the wear for it. But our ordeal was almost over and, in another two days, at last we made it to Tsong-gan-hien, a small town beneath the great mountain of Wuyi.

  We took lodgings, arriving like a rough crew, soaked in mud, the men irascible and the mules bony. The inn was built of wood, a huge dining hall with a balcony around it and, in another building behind, with suites of rooms for hire. Our mules were stabled and fed, our luggage stored safely, the men ordered hot baths and five grain spirit and, thank God, Robert and I were allocated rooms. We were given the best there was on offer—two tiny, wooden bedrooms. The small windows looked out onto the mountain, though on our arrival neither Robert nor I noticed the view.

  We oversaw the stowing of the luggage and made sure the men were provided for. Then, at the peak of my exhaustion and on my way to see to myself, I tripped over the step at the very front door, falling hard onto the wooden boards. It took a second or two before I even registered the pain, hauling myself up and staring, disbelieving, at my ankle as if it had betrayed me. Robert came up behind me.

  ‘Mary! What happened?’

  I turned my eyes towards him and motioned, exhausted, at my foot. It was obvious.

  ‘Help me up,’ I asked, though as he did so it was clear the ankle was swelling and I could not put any weight on it.