‘Who did those ruffians think he is?’ the Doctor continued.
‘Neither Chesterton nor myself have been in China for several cen-for a very long time.’
‘There’s a Chesterton with the British garrison here. He looks very much like your friend, and I suppose the people who attacked him must have thought they were one and the same. Then when they heard that your friend’s name is Chesterton...’
‘I see.’
‘I myself thought they were the same man, but if you and he have only just arrived, then it cannot be so. The man they wanted to hurt has been here for two years.’
‘The same man,’ the Doctor said thoughtfully. He looked troubled. ‘Is it possible?’
Kei-Ying thought better than to ask what he was talking about.
The Doctor looked into the distance. ‘Perhaps if we knew when he had first arrived, and where he was before,’ he said.
He pursed his lips and looked out through the gates at a figure running through the street. ‘It’s that one-eyed fellow from the inn where we were set upon.’
‘Cheng?’
Kei-Ying turned, thinking the Doctor must have exceptional eyesight by anyone’s standards, let alone someone of his generous years. It was indeed Cheng, running, dodging basket-laden merchants and almost slipping on fallen fruit.
‘Wong-sifu,’ he gasped, out of breath. ‘Pang just told me.
The English are coming for you.’
‘What?’
Kei-Ying wondered why on earth they would be looking for him. He and his son helped to train the Guangzhou militia, who collaborated with the foreign soldiers.
‘They think you’ve kidnapped, or killed, someone.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Kei-Ying shivered.
‘I know, but they’re coming.’
Kei-Ying turned to the Doctor. ‘If they see you and your injured friend here, it -’
‘I understand. It might make them think we are your prisoners, or that your people mistreated Ian. But, on the other hand, perhaps I can help you by putting in a good word.’
‘They’d only arrest you too,’ Cheng prophesied. ‘Say you’re a traitor or something.’
‘There is that, I suppose,’ the Doctor admitted.
Kei-Ying put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I think the best thing would be for you to keep watch over Ian until my son and the women return. His recovery is the most important thing at the moment.’
The Doctor’s gaze was drawn back indoors. ‘You’re right, of course.’
‘Stay quiet. Just in case.’
‘As you say.’
The Doctor disappeared into the sprawling surgery and Kei-Ying seated himself comfortably on a stool on the veranda.
Presently, there was a knocking on the gates at the far side of the courtyard. One of Kei-Ying’s students rushed across to see who it was.
‘That will be the British army,’ Kei-Ying called out to him.
Let them in, then tell Cousin Yee to bring tea and yum cha.’
The student paused only to bow before opening the gates.
The visitors were indeed soldiers. The enlisted men looked nervous, but their rifles were slung over their shoulders and not in their hands. In the lead were two officers. The younger one had a plume on his helmet and a Vandyke beard. The older man had some sort of cloth wound round his helmet in lieu of a plume, and a handlebar moustache.
‘Master Wong?’ the bearded one asked. Kei-Ying nodded.
‘I’m Captain Logan. We have been given information -’
‘Suggestions
and
supposition,
perhaps,
but
not
information.’
‘We’ve been told that you are holding some English prisoners.’
‘Prisoners?’ It was all Kei-Ying could do not to laugh.
‘That’s insane.’
‘We have a reliable witness. He says that there’s a beaten man, and possibly female hostages as well.’
‘There are no Englishwomen here.’
‘And Englishmen?’
‘There are six standing in front of me, so I can hardly deny that.’
‘Perhaps if we could look around inside?’
Kei-Ying shook his head with a smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and meant it. ‘But I have patients who must not be disturbed.’
‘Master Wong, you strike me as an honourable man, yet you’re shooting yourself in the foot here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me to take you back for questioning.’ The captain sighed. ‘All right, we do need to ask you a few questions, if only to determine how honest our informant is. I have no choice but to place you under arrest for the moment.’
Kei-Ying had expected no different from such a professional man. He admired professionalism. ‘I can only tell you the truth, Captain, and you won’t believe it when I do. So you will be arresting me whatever happens.’
‘We don’t know that. You’re well respected by the Kwantung militia, and I sure as hell don’t want to arrest you.
So why not try me?’
Kei-Ying nodded. Fate couldn’t be cheated. ‘Some men attacked an Englishman at the Hidden Panda. Cheng brought him here for treatment.’
‘Where is he now?’
Kei-Ying took a deep breath. ‘Standing next to you.’
Inside, in the shadowed coolness of the hall, the Doctor had been listening. He looked through the interior door to where Ian lay unconscious, then peered through the latticework shutters at the soldiers.
The major turned and the Doctor could finally see his face.
His hair had a few streaks of grey in it, and he had a handlebar moustache the shade of faded ink, but it was a face the Doctor had become accustomed to over the last couple of years.
The Doctor’s eyes widened slightly, and he whispered,
‘Chesterton.’
5
Major Chesterton had been sweating under the sun, as much from the heat inside his skull as from the heat outside. He had been perfectly content to let Logan do the talking so far as he didn’t trust himself to avoid slurring his words, forgetting them altogether or betraying his mental fogginess.
And then Wong Kei-Ying had pointed to him. Chesterton couldn’t quite deny what he had said, though Logan and Anderson clearly expected some such outright dismissal.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been treated by you, Master Wong.
I’m sure I would have remembered.’
Kei-Ying looked him up and down, and his lip curled as if he was suppressing a pain. ‘I don’t know how or why you don’t remember, but I treated you last night.’
Chesterton hesitated. Wong looked and sounded sincere, and if he’d made this statement about someone else he would certainly have believed him. But since Chesterton knew he had been with Logan and Anderson and the rest of the garrison last night, he knew Wong was lying. He suddenly felt a tinge of admiration for the man’s barefaced cheek.
‘You have to come with us, I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘I told you so,’ Kei-Ying said. He looked around at the students, who were starting to gather around the courtyard.
‘Might I give instructions to my staff to look after the surgery and school while I’m with you?’
Chesterton agreed immediately.
Kei-Ying went into the hall and spotted the Doctor hovering in the doorway to Ian’s room, neither quite in one place nor the other.
‘Doctor,’ he began, uncertain how to proceed. ‘That man outside... it’s him.’ He pointed to Ian.
‘Yes, I saw. This is a most unfortunate turn of events, my friend. Unfortunate and dangerous.’
Kei-Ying couldn’t disagree. ‘I will have to go. Somehow I must make that Chesterton...,’ he gestured to the major, ‘...
understand that I am not his enemy.’
‘I will come and speak to him later,’ the Doctor promised.
In the meantime, I have a favour to ask.’
�
��Anything, Master Wong. My friends and I are... well, we are in your debt.’
‘Someone must take charge of Po Chi Lam while I am at Xamian. I would like you to do so.’
‘Me, sir?’ the Doctor protested. ‘But I am -’
‘You are a man of medicine, and of reason. Don’t worry about the gungfu school, my son will handle that side of things. But Po Chi Lam must stay open for people to visit it for help when they are ill.’
The Doctor drew himself up, clutching his lapels. ‘I shall do my best to honour your request, Master Wong.’
‘Thank you.’
Barbara wanted to run all the way back to Po Chi Lam from the old temple, but her tired legs and feet would never have been up to the task. She suspected that Fei-Hung might have managed it - he seemed the athletic type - but in the end their pace was much the same as when they had walked to the temple.
As a result, they arrived at Po Chi Lam just in time to see a British captain with a Vandyke beard escorting Kei-Ying to a small carriage outside the gates. Another carriage filled with uniformed men was already rattling unsteadily away.
Barbara didn’t like the look of this at all.
‘What the hell?’ Fei-Hung darted past her and ran down the street towards the gates. One of the soldiers levelled his gun at him as he approached, forcing the young man to raise his hands.
‘It’s all right,’ Kei-Ying shouted, then repeated the words more calmly. ‘I won’t be gone long.’
Fei-Hung couldn’t take his eyes off the gun, wondering just how fast a bullet would travel. ‘Is this the thanks you get for-’
‘Never mind,’ Kei-Ying snapped. ‘There are issues here that I can’t explain. But the Doctor might be able to.’
‘The Doctor?’
‘I’ve put him in charge of the surgery. You know the training schedule well enough to handle it?’
‘Of course, but -’
‘No buts, son. Talk to the Doctor. He’ll explain.’
‘Those gwailos are a curse on us, Father.’ Fei-Hung could feel his fists flexing of their own volition.
‘Trust me,’ Kei-Ying said simply, and turned to step proudly into the carriage.
The men’s words had reached Barbara and Vicki faintly, but clearly. The women exchanged glances, each wishing to see whether the other comprehended the situation.
‘What’s happening?’ Vicki asked.
‘They said the Doctor would know, and he usually does.’
‘But Master Wong helped us.’
As Vicki watched Kei-Ying walk out under armed escort without showing any signs of being ruffled she could, for a moment, almost see a taller man in his place, proudly wearing the uniform of the Merchant Space Marine.
Lieutenant Commander Pallister would have responded exactly as Kei-Ying had. For the briefest of moments he was there, alive and on duty. Then he was gone, and Kei-Ying was boarding the carriage, and a tear was on Vicki’s cheek.
The abbot was walking down the gangplank even before it thumped on to the ground. He was glad to be on dry land again, and gladder still to be met by such a glorious sight.
Flame cleansed the buildings, while the ragged townspeople were being organised by his troops and formed into orderly parties, ready for work.
Zhao and Gao were already ashore, helmetless but in full armour, poring over a scroll they had unrolled between them.
‘Brothers,’ the abbot called out, ‘well done.’
Gao looked round and snorted. ‘The men of this age are weak, but they still have some fire in their bellies.’
‘Especially when motivated properly,’ Zhao added with a sly grin.
‘And the temple?’ the abbot asked.
Zhao became more serious. ‘The local priests we interro-gated say it burnt down 150 years ago. A new Buddhist temple has been built on the site.’
‘Raze it.’ The abbot took the scroll and spread it out on the ground. ‘How many of these sites do we hold?’
‘Directly or indirectly, more than half,’ Gao replied. ‘Most of the sites are not well guarded, or indeed guarded at all.’
‘I would still be happier,’ Zhao rumbled, ‘if we struck outward in concentric circles from the origin point. That way we could consolidate a perimeter -’
‘Which would continually expand until our forces were stretched too thinly all around it,’ the abbot snapped, disappointed at the answer to his query. He reached out to touch Zhao’s shoulder. ‘I have my reasons, my general. Have I led you false so far?’
‘No, my Lord.’
‘Nor will I.’
Zhao lowered his head apologetically. ‘I would never doubt my Lord. I merely thought to see you conquer that which you most desire, Lord.’
‘I know.’
‘Of the sites... What of T’ai Shan?’
The abbot grimaced, remembering another time and another life. ‘Ah, the sacred mountain...’ His eyes narrowed vengefully. ‘When the time comes, the gods there will not reject me this time.’ He smiled and looked down, turning his hands over in front of his eyes.
Quietly, so that only Zhao and Gao could hear, he added,
‘I’ve outlived them.’
6
The wooden floor and walls of the central hall at Po Chi Lam felt darker to Fei-Hung. Dark, cold and dead. It was like being trapped in the heart of a dead tree with no way out to the soft floor of the forest.
He was breathing too fast, and he knew it.
The Doctor was checking through the little case that Barbara had fetched from the TARDIS. Vicki had tried to speak to Fei-Hung but he had brushed the little gwailo aside.
The way he was feeling was all the fault of her and her friends. He clenched his fists.
‘We can’t leave my father in the hands of those barbarian gwailos... no offence, by the way. He wouldn’t let any of his friends rot like that -’
‘Indeed, and nor shall we,’ the Doctor said sharply. ‘But we can’t just go running around like headless chickens, now can we, hmm? What good would it do Master Wong if we all went and got ourselves jailed as well? Or worse?’
Fei-Hung glared at him, willing the old man to keel over. He was too sensible to pretend he didn’t know the Doctor was right, and young enough to be frustrated by this. ‘Then we should make sure we don’t get caught.’
The Doctor took up a lecturing pose. ‘And how does anyone give such guarantees? No, anything we do should be done with thought and civility.’
‘And what are you planning to do?’
‘First, I shall complete the job of healing my friend that your father started. Then I shall go and speak to the major who was here, and try to settle the problem with rationality and diplomacy, and not some kind of bash-and-dash nonsense that you young people seem to think is so important.’
Ian was immersed in pain, the skin boiling from his flesh and the flesh from his bones, with nothing to cool the water and restore him.
There was a strange smell of alien herbs in the air, and the sound of singsong voices. He didn’t wonder where he was -
he remembered they had arrived in nineteenth-century China
- but in a way this was a disadvantage. At least if he couldn’t remember what had happened, he wouldn’t constantly be reliving it in his head. Waking or sleeping, the beating had been an expert one by anybody’s standards, and he had all the pleasures of remembering every blow in intimate detail.
Then he opened his eyes and knew that the world was for the most part still a good and just place, because Barbara Wright’s face was the first thing he saw.
After an hour or so, Ian was able to sit up and take some soup and tea while the Doctor and Barbara filled him in on what had happened while he was unconscious. Barbara’s hand gripped his own with a crushing force throughout their story, but it was a discomfort worth having.
‘What I don’t understand,’ Ian said at the end, ‘is what those men had against me. I mean, if they just hated foreigners or white men... Well, it’s senseless but it happen
s.
Along with being red on the inside, and thinking that people who share the same views are right, a dislike for people who are different is one of the few things that makes all creeds and colours the same. But those men knew my name and singled me out.’
The Doctor was packing away his instruments into the medical kit from the TARDIS. ‘They knew your name and, yes, they seemed to hold some kind of grudge against you, though I’ve yet to make the inquiries that might give us a clue as to why.’
‘But it’s impossible!’
‘No, it isn’t. Not in the TARDIS. Disturbing, yes... Troubling, yes... But not impossible. It seems, young man, that you are going to make quite an impression on some future visit.’
Ian’s head was starting to get fuzzy. He could hear and see well enough, but surely the words were getting scrambled on the way to his brain. Was the Doctor talking about a journey in the TARDIS? Ian remembered the TARDIS, but wasn’t sure he recalled every trip he’d made in it. ‘Future visit? What do you mean?’
‘You’ll agree that those people clearly knew who you are, hmm?’
Ian winced as the bruises on his side tried to stretch while he put his shirt back on. ‘Demonstrably.’
‘Quite so, quite so... But you’ve never been to nineteenth-century Guangdong before, have you?’
‘Well, you’d know if we’d landed here before.’
‘Of course. So obviously you must return here on a future journey, but to a point in time some little time before today.
Those people have already experienced whatever it is you’ll do, but for you it hasn’t happened yet.’
Maybe it was the throbbing pain from the bruising around his skull, but Ian found himself less able to follow the Doctor’s explanation than usual. ‘I’m not sure I follow you, Doctor, but I think I get the basic idea. Not sure I can believe it, mind you.’
‘Well, I can believe it,’ the Doctor told him, and tapped his chest with a fingertip. ‘Now, you just be careful until we know more about how you will end up here.’
Ian shivered.
Barbara cleared her throat. ‘And what about our unbelievable little incident?’
The Eleventh Tiger Page 10