China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  He’d been lucky the Odstocks had been looking for a junior partner. He’d known the younger brother, Benjamin, for some time before he’d approached him about joining the business. As it happened, he’d chosen a good time.

  “My brother Tully’s fifty now,” the stocky merchant told him. “Been in Canton for years. Wants to go back and join our father in London.” He’d smiled. “Wouldn’t be my choice. Father’s a crusty old cove. So Tully needs someone to learn the ropes in Canton. Think you could do it?”

  “It sounds just what I’m looking for,” Trader had replied.

  “We’d be wanting someone who could buy into the business.” Benjamin had looked at him keenly.

  “I could be interested—depending on the terms.”

  “It’s not like being in Calcutta,” Benjamin had cautioned him. “Not much social life. Only men allowed at Canton itself. They have to stay there for weeks during the trading season. Families live out at Macao, which is not a bad place. Healthy. The Portuguese run it, as you know, but there’s an English community. English church. That sort of thing. And a British government representative, by the way. Man named Captain Elliot at present. Quite a good fellow, I daresay.”

  “And you retire with a fortune,” Trader added amiably. The fact that he hoped to make his fortune faster was better concealed for the moment.

  “With luck.” Benjamin Odstock regarded him thoughtfully while Trader surveyed the tobacco stains on the older gentleman’s white waistcoat. “A man needs enterprise and a steady nerve in this trade. Prices fluctuate. Sometimes there’s a glut.”

  “The emperor doesn’t like the trade.”

  “Don’t worry about that. The demand’s huge, and growing.” Benjamin Odstock puffed out his florid cheeks. ‘‘Just keep a cool head. I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said comfortably, “if the opium trade went on forever.”

  The Odstocks knew their business. John thought he could trust them.

  * * *

  —

  It was midnight when they saw the schooner ahead. Three lights. The signal. Trader was still on deck, standing near the captain.

  “That’ll be McBride, I should think,” said the captain. “He likes to pick up cargo out here.”

  “Why?” The depot was at Lintin, in the gulf.

  “McBride prefers the open sea.” A moment later, he gave the order: “Heave to.” As they drew near, the skipper of the schooner held up a lantern so that they could see his bearded face. “That’s him,” the captain remarked.

  Then they heard McBride’s voice call across the water. “Nothing’s selling at Lintin. No takers.”

  Trader felt his face go pale. Lucky no one could see it in the dark. “Is he lying?” he asked the captain. “To get me to sell to him?”

  “McBride’s honest. Besides, he doesn’t buy. He sells on commission.”

  My first voyage, John thought, and the cargo in which I’ve sunk my inheritance is unsalable. Was he going to be ruined?

  “I’m going to try up the coast,” McBride shouted. “Room for a hundred more cases. Are you interested?”

  John remembered Benjamin Odstock’s words. A steady nerve. A cool head. And enterprise. Yet he was almost surprised to hear his own voice shouting back. “If you’ll take me with you, and bring me into Canton when we’re done.”

  There was a pause. “All right,” called McBride.

  * * *

  —

  There were twenty hands on the schooner—English, Dutch, Irish, a couple of Scandinavians, and four Indian lascars. It took less than half an hour for them to transfer the hundred chests from the clipper into the schooner’s wide hold.

  Meanwhile, John discovered that he was not the only passenger. He was pleased to find that Read, his acquaintance from Calcutta, was also on board.

  “I was sailing to Macao,” the American told him. “Then McBride hailed us this afternoon. When I heard he was taking a run up the coast I jumped ship and came along for the ride.” He grinned. “Glad to have your company, Trader. It should be interesting. We’ve got a missionary on board, too.” He jerked his finger for’ard to where a figure could be seen sleeping in a hammock. “Dutchman.”

  With his cargo now complete, McBride was anxious to depart. The crew scurried, and they were under way again.

  “Use my cabin if you want, gentlemen,” the skipper said. “Or if you prefer to be on deck, there are blankets aft. I’d get some sleep if I were you.”

  Read chose the deck. So did John. If anything happened, he didn’t want to miss it. They went forward and settled down. Most of the crew were sitting quietly or sleeping there. The missionary in his hammock, a large, heavy fellow, had never broken his sleep. From time to time, the sound of his snores was added to the faint hiss of the breeze in the rigging.

  John fell asleep at once and did not wake until the first hint of dawn was in the sky. Read was also awake, gazing up thoughtfully at the fading stars.

  “Good morning,” said John quietly. “Been awake long?”

  “A while.” He turned to look at John. “You own the cargo you brought aboard?”

  “Part of it.” John sat up. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead. He brushed it away.

  “So you’ve quite a bit riding on this. Did you borrow the money?”

  “Some.”

  “Brave man.” Read didn’t pursue the matter further.

  They got up and went to join the skipper at the wheel.

  “All quiet?” Read asked.

  “Only pirates to watch for now,” McBride replied. “If we do meet any pirates, sir,” the skipper continued, “I shall give you a pistol and ask you to use it.”

  “I’ll shoot.” Read took out a cigar.

  “You look like a man,” the skipper ventured, “that knows the seven seas.”

  “I get around.”

  “What brings you here, if I may ask?”

  “Avoiding my wife.” Read lit his cigar and puffed in silence for a minute or two. “First time I’ve smuggled, though.” He grinned. “Never been a criminal before.”

  “Only under Chinese law,” McBride said. “And we don’t count that.”

  “Right.” Read glanced towards the missionary, whose snores had just grown loud. “Tell me,” he asked, “do you always bring a missionary?”

  “Usually. They speak the lingo. Need ’em to translate.”

  “And they don’t mind…the business?”

  McBride smiled. “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  —

  They caught sight of the coast an hour after dawn—a small headland to the west that soon vanished again. Then nothing until midmorning, when more coastline began to appear. It was an hour later when Trader saw the square sails coming towards them. He glanced at Captain McBride.

  “Pirates?” he asked.

  The captain shook his head and handed the wheel to Read for a moment while he went to shake the missionary awake. “Rise and shine, Van Buskirk. We’ve got customers.”

  Trader watched. The large Dutchman, once awake, moved with surprising speed. From under an awning, he dragged two large wicker baskets and opened them. One contained cheaply bound books; the other was full of pamphlets, in colored paper wrappers. Then he came to the wheel.

  “Bibles?” asked Read.

  “Gospels, Mr. Read, and Christian tracts. In Chinese, of course. Printed in Macao.”

  “To convert the heathen?”

  “That is my hope.”

  “Strange way to convert people, if I may say so—off the side of an opium vessel.”

  “If I could preach the Gospel ashore, sir, without being arrested, I should not be aboard this ship,” the big man replied. He looked at the skipper. “Which cargo do we sell first?”

  McBride indicated Trader. The Dutchman turned to
John. “I have your assurance that the cargo is all Patna and Benares. No loose Malwa cakes.”

  “All properly packed, tight in balls,” said John. “Top quality.”

  “Will you trust me to negotiate the prices?” the missionary asked. He saw John hesitate. “It will be better that way.”

  Trader glanced at McBride, who nodded.

  A strange fellow, this big Dutchman, John thought. A speaker of many tongues. God knows how many years he’d been out in the East trying to convert the heathen of a land he could not enter.

  And now, it seemed, he must place his fortune in the Dutchman’s hands.

  “All right,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  The smuggling boat was a long, slim, unpainted vessel, with square sails and thirty or forty oarsmen, all armed with knives and cutlasses, at its sides. Scrambling dragons, the Chinese called these boats. From whatever quarter the wind came—or if there was no wind at all—a scrambling dragon could maneuver at speed, and it was hard to catch.

  The smugglers had no sooner come alongside than a small, tough, barefooted fellow with a pigtail, dressed only in knee-length cotton breeches and an open shirt, climbed quickly aboard and went straight to Van Buskirk.

  The negotiation was amazingly brief, conducted in Cantonese, which the Dutchman seemed to speak fluently. After a few words, the smuggler dived down into the hold with the captain and selected a chest, which was carried up on deck by two of the hands. Taking a sharp knife, he cut the gunnysacking from around the wooden chest and prized open the pitch seal. A moment later, the chest was open and he was riffling through the packing filler, removing the matting to reveal the upper layer of twenty compartments containing the spherical cakes of opium, like so many small cannonballs, each tightly wrapped in poppy leaves.

  Taking out a ball and scraping back the leaf, the man wiped his knife on his shirt and then worked it a little way into the hard, dark opium cake beneath. Then he placed the blade in his mouth. After closing his eyes for a moment, he nodded sharply and turned to Van Buskirk.

  Less than a minute later, after a quick-fire exchange, the deal was done.

  “Fifty chests, at six hundred silver dollars each,” the Dutchman announced.

  “I’d hoped for a thousand,” said John.

  “Not this year. His first offer was five hundred. You’re still making a profit.”

  Before they had even finished speaking, the crewmen were hurriedly bringing up chests on deck, while others began to lower them over the side to the scrambling dragon. At the same time, a chest of silver was being hauled up. As soon as it was on deck, the Chinese smuggler began to count it out. Bags of coins, ingots of silver, he made a pile on the deck while the captain calmly watched.

  Van Buskirk, however, seemed to have lost all interest in the transaction now. Rushing to his wicker baskets, he delved into the first one and pulled out a pile of books. “Help me, Mr. Trader,” he called out. “It’s the least you can do.”

  Trader hesitated. The silver was still piling up on the deck. But Read obligingly went to the other basket, scooped up an armful of tracts, and, holding them under his chin, walked to the side of the ship and dropped them into the smugglers’ vessel below, while the Dutchman did the same thing with his gospels.

  “Read them,” the Dutchman instructed the Chinese oarsmen below, in Cantonese. “Share the Word of God.”

  The business of loading the opium was progressing now with astonishing speed. A human chain had been formed so that the heavy boxes were flowing from hold to deck and from the deck over the side as smoothly as a snake. By the time that Van Buskirk and Read had each collected two more armfuls of literature and distributed them, the loading was complete and the Chinese smuggler was leaving the ship.

  “Tell him to wait,” Trader called to the Dutchman. “I haven’t checked the money yet.” But Van Buskirk appeared unconcerned, and to Trader’s dismay, the smuggler was over the side and his oarsmen were pushing away. He saw both Read and the captain smile as the missionary calmly closed his wicker baskets before coming over to where the pile of silver lay.

  “You think he may have shortchanged you?” Van Buskirk asked. He gently shook his head. “You will soon learn, young man, that the Chinese never do that. Not even the smugglers. Your silver will be exactly correct, I assure you.”

  And as he stowed the money in his strongbox, Trader discovered that this was indeed the case.

  * * *

  —

  For two more hours they continued on their way. It was a fine day, and the sun’s rays were dancing cheerfully upon the sea. He and Read stood together by the ship’s rail. Several times they saw schools of flying fish skimming over the water.

  They’d been enjoying the scene for a while when the American gently observed: “I’ve been trying to figure you out, Trader. You seem a nice fellow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The men in this trade are a tough crowd, mostly. I’m not saying you couldn’t be tough. But you seem a little finer. So I’m wondering what’s driving you. Something you’re running from, something you’re searching for. Sure as hell, something’s eating you. So I’m wondering: Could it be a woman?”

  “Could be,” John said.

  “Must be quite a young lady,” Read said with a smile, “to get you into the opium trade.”

  * * *

  —

  An hour later, when Captain McBride saw the blunt square-rigged vessel slowly approaching, he cursed.

  “War junk,” he explained. “Government ship. Officials aboard.”

  “What will they do?”

  “Depends. They could impound the cargo.” He glanced at Trader and saw him go very pale. “We can give up and go home. I can outrun them. Or we can head out to sea and try another approach. But they might still be waiting for us.”

  John was silent. He’d chosen to make this run. How was he going to explain the loss of fifty chests of opium to his new partners? He couldn’t afford to lose them, in any case. He turned to Read. For once, the worldly American looked doubtful.

  To his surprise, it was Van Buskirk who made the decision.

  “Proceed, gentlemen,” he said calmly. His fleshy face was impassive. “Put your trust in me.” He turned to the skipper. “When we get close, McBride, please heave to, so that the official can board. I shall also require a table placed on deck, two chairs, and two wineglasses. Nobody should speak. Just listen politely, even if you have no idea what he is saying. I will do the rest.”

  Trader watched as the war junk drew close. Its high wooden sides were certainly impressive. The vessel’s masts were huge, as were the sails of bamboo matting. The massive stern was painted like a Chinese mask. On either side of the bow was a staring eye. The deck looked cluttered, but the cannon were plain to see.

  Only a single man, a mandarin, came across. He was rowed over to them in a tiny boat, in which he sat, very composed. He was middle-aged, with long, drooping mustaches, and he wore a black cylindrical hat. Over his embroidered robes was a blue three-quarter-length surcoat, emblazoned on the chest with a big square, designating his rank. When he came aboard, he looked around him calmly. Obviously he had no fear that these Western barbarians would dare to offer him any violence. Then he took out a scroll and began to read from it. The document was written in the official Mandarin Chinese, which sounded to Trader strangely like birdsong.

  “What’s he saying?” he whispered to Van Buskirk.

  “That the emperor, considering the health and safety of his people, expressly forbids the selling of opium. Should our ship contain any, it will be taken away and destroyed immediately.”

  John Trader winced. “That’s it, then.”

  “Patience,” the Dutchman murmured.

  When the mandarin had concluded his announcement, Van Buskirk stepped forward and made
him a low bow. Gesturing to the table that had been set up, he politely asked the mandarin if he would care to sit and talk a little. Once he and the mandarin were seated, he drew from his coat a silver flask and filled both glasses before them with a rich brown cordial. “Madeira, gentlemen,” he remarked to the onlookers. “I always keep some with me.”

  Ceremoniously he toasted the mandarin, and for some time the two men sipped their drink and conversed politely. At one point, Trader noticed, the missionary looked concerned and seemed to be questioning the mandarin closely. Then he beckoned to Trader.

  “I shall require you to give me one thousand silver dollars from your strongbox, Mr. Trader,” he remarked blandly. “McBride will reimburse you for his share later.”

  “This is for…?”

  “Just bring me the money,” the Dutchman said. “In a bag.”

  A minute or two later, having handed over the bag of silver coins, Trader watched as the Dutchman gravely gave it to the mandarin, who took it and, without being so rude as to count it, rose to depart.

  Only when the official was on his way back to the war junk did John speak. “Did you just bribe a government official?”

  “It was not a bribe,” the Dutchman replied. “It was a present.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth, of course. I explained to him that, were he to ask you or the captain or even Read here if there was any opium stowed below, I had every confidence that you would say that there was not. He was courteous enough to agree that, this being the case, your word would suffice. I then gave him a small present. He might have asked for more, but he did not.”

  “A thousand silver dollars is small?”

  “You got off very lightly. Do you wish me to summon him back to dispute the matter?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then we are free to proceed.” Van Buskirk nodded to the captain to indicate that the ship should get under way again.