Читать книгу Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 4: Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman on the March, Flashman and the Tiger - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 15

There’s no blind terror to compare with it – being hustled along, lurching and stumbling, by invisible attackers. You’re lost, blind, and half-suffocated, you can feel the cruelty in the clutching hands, horrible pain and dissolution await you, and the only thing worse is the moment when the blanket comes off – which mine did before my assailants had taken twenty strides.

There was a yell and a clash of steel, a buffeting shock as my captors staggered, and I was crashing to earth, dragging the blanket away, to find myself rolling in a flowerbed, with one of my kidnappers clawing at me in the dark. I shrieked as I caught the flash of steel in the half-light, and then the knife-point was beneath my chin, and I was shuddering still, whispering entreaties for my life.

It ain’t the best position to view a fatal mêlée that is going on a few yards away, with dark figures slashing and swearing in the shadows. I heard one horrid gurgle as a blade went home, caught the glittering arc of a curved sword swinging and the grating ring of the parry, but for the most part they fought in silence. Then the blanket was over my head again, and I was being rushed along, barking my shins and trying to yell for help, until they pulled up, a voice hissed: “Walk!” in Chinese, and I felt the prick of the point again, in my spine this time. I walked.

How far we went, I can’t guess, but it must have been a good quarter of a mile before I felt paved stones under my feet, and presently was aware of bright light outside the blanket, and the sound of hushed voices. I was hustled up a few steps, and then there was carpet under my bare soles. We stopped, the knife was removed, and the gripping hands were withdrawn. I didn’t stir, but stood shrouded and quaking for a good five minutes, when I was pushed forward again, over tiles and then on to another carpet. The blanket was whipped away, and I stood blinking in bright light. Facing me, breathing with an agitation to equal my own, although my bosom could never have heaved like hers, stood the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees.

Just for a moment I wondered if I was dreaming, but she was fully-clad, so it seemed unlikely. Deuced fetching, for all that, in a blue silk gown such as the Manchoo ladies wear, in which there are three or four skirts of varying lengths, with huge hanging sleeves, and her hair done up in high buns. She was one of your round-faced Chinese beauties, and none the worse for that, but my attention was distracted by the black-cowled figured at my elbow throwing back his hood, and I found myself gaping at General Lee Hsiu-chen.

“I apologise. It was necessary,” says he, and I wasted no time in babbled questions. He’d tell me what he wanted me to know. He was breathing hard, and I saw a trickle of blood on the back of his hand. He nodded to the girl, and she walked away to a curtained arch at the end of the short, carpeted passage in which we stood. She waited there, head averted, and Lee spoke rapidly, getting his breath back.

“You are to be granted audience of the Heavenly King. It is a highly unusual honour. Few foreigners have seen him for many years. He understands that you are from the London Missionary Society. Say nothing of how you came here. Listen to him.” He smiled, an odd, dreamy smile that sent chills up my back. “Yes. Listen to him. Do not be surprised if he talks all night. He does not tire as mortals do.”

He gestured me towards the archway, and as I approached, the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees turned and held out a red silk robe – I was in the sarong I wear in bed – slipping it over my shoulders. Then she pulled back the curtains, beckoning me to follow.

The heavy smell of incense struck my nostrils as I saw we were in a small, low chamber hung round with dragon silks. At the far end was a deep divan caught in a pool of light from two tall candle-branches, and on it reclined a short, stocky figure in white silk embroidered in gold. He was nodding sleepily in that joss-laden air, while a female voice recited high and clear:

“The Heavenly Father, the Elder Brother, the Heavenly King, and the Junior Lord shall be Lords forever. The Heavenly Kingdom is established everywhere, and the effulgence of the Heavenly Family is spread upon all the Earth for all eternity.”

The voice stopped, and the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees rustled forward, dropped to her knees half-way to the divan, kow-towed several times, and addressed the chap on the couch. I caught the words “…ŠLondon Missionary Society …” and then she was hurrying back to me, motioning me forward, indicating that I too should kow-tow. Well, the hell with him, Heavenly King or not. I walked forward, and got a close look at him as I began to make a half-bow – a tubby little Chink, with long dark hair framing a round, amiable face, a short sandy beard, and great dark eyes that shone in his pasty face like a hypnotist’s, but with none of the force of your professional mesmeriser. They were placid, dreamy eyes, friendly and kind … and what the devil was I doing, kow-towing? I jumped up, vexed, and the big eyes smiled sleepily, holding mine. So that was his secret; you couldn’t help looking at him. With an effort I tore my glance away – and realised that we were not alone. And I can pay no higher tribute to the Tien Wang’s magnetic personality than to say that only now did I notice those others present.

One was kneeling on the couch, holding a scroll from which she had been reading. She wore a towering gilt head-dress, like a pagoda, and a little fringe of gold threads round her hips. That was all her attire, and out of deference to royalty I modestly lowered my eyes, and found myself contemplating another naked female reclining at my feet – one more step and I’d have trod on her buttocks. I half-started back, afraid to look in case there were more bare houris perched on the candelabra. But there were just the two, twins by the look of them, still as superbly-shaped statues, lovely faces intent on the man on the couch, and apparently unaware of my existence. Reluctantly, I looked back at him, and he smiled vacantly.

“Welcome, in the peace of God,” says he, and indicated a silken stool by the couch. It was a deep, liquid voice, with a curious husky quality. I sat, uncomfortably aware that the reclining poppet was only inches from my foot, and that if I looked straight ahead my horizon was voluptuously filled by the charms of the kneeling nymph. It’s hell in the Taiping, you know. Not that I bar contemplating the undraped female form, but there’s a time and a place, and heaven knew what I’d interrupted. I wondered if these were two of his reputed eighty-eight wives, or if he, too, had been voted a few spares, next week being his birthday and all. Good heavens – was it possible one of them was for me? I didn’t like to ask, and I didn’t get the chance, for he fixed me with those luminous, empty eyes and his melancholy smile, and began to speak to me. My heart was hammering, what with the knowledge that this was the Tien Wang, the Chinese Messiah, one of the most powerful men on earth, and that what passed between us might be vital … Bruce’s instructions … my mission … That, and the nearness of those mouth-watering little flesh-traps – d’you wonder I was sweating? It was like a wild dream: the sweet, husky voice, pausing every now and then as though to compel an answer, the blindly shining eyes, the heavy reek of incense, the silk edges of the stool hot under my hands, the satin gleam of bums, bellies and boobies in the candle-shine, the soft lunatic babble which I’d not believe if I didn’t remember every word:

Tien Wang: … The London Missionary Society. Ah, yes … but I do not remember you … only Dr Sylvester, my dear old friend … (Long pause)

Flashy: Ah, yes … your majesty. Sylvester. To be sure.

T.W.: Dr Sylvester … how long? How long? (Goes into trance)

F. (helping matters along): Couple of months, perhaps?

T.W. (reviving vaguely): You have spoken with Dr Sylvester recently? Then you are greatly blessed. (Beatific smile) For you have made the Journey. I felicitate you.

F.: Sorry?

T.W.: The Journey to the Celestial Above. I, too, have spoken with Dr Sylvester in Heaven, since his earthly death in 1841. Soon the portals will open for us all, and we shall rest in the Divine Halls of Eternal Peace. Have you visited Heaven often?

F.: Not to say often. Nothing like your majesty … weekends, that sort of thing. Just to see Sylvester, really … oh, God …

T.W.: How well I recall his discourse … illuminating … constructive … wise …

F.: Absolutely. Couldn’t get enough of it. (Long pause, during which F. ’s attention wanders)

T.W.: His humanity was equalled only by his scholarship. Was there a fruit of learning that he had not plucked? Divinity … philosophy … theology … metaphysics …

F. (musing): Tits, (in confusion) No, I mean metaphysics! Geometry, anything … he knew it all!

T.W. (benignly): Soon we shall join him, when we have made the final Journey, but only after long and laborious struggle. When you first visited Heaven, were you given new bowels?

F.: Eh? Oh … no, no, I wasn’t. I wasn’t considered worthy, you see … your majesty. Not then. Not for new bowels.

T.W.: Take heart. I too was rebuked when I first entered the Golden Doors. Jesus, my Elder Brother, was angry because I had not learned my Bible lessons well. He was correct. We must all learn our Bible. (Long pause)

F. (desperate): Moab is my washpot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe. Er … Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, thing …

T.W.: I remember how kind Jesus’s wife was … and when my heart and entrails had been removed, I was given new ones, of shining red.

F.: Red, eh?

T.W.: And God gave me a sword to exterminate demons … and a seal of authority. The demons transformed themselves eighteen times, as they have power to do.

F.: Yes, yes … eighteen. Shocking.

T.W.: But I drove them down to Hell, and the Heavenly Mother gave me fruits and sweets. As I ate them, marvelling at their savour, God traced the Devil’s misdeeds to errors in Confucius, and rebuked him. But Confucius defended himself vehemently.

F. (indignant): He did, did he?

T.W.: Then Jesus and the Angels joined in against Confucius, who tried to sneak away to join the Devil, Yen-lo, but he was caught and brought back and beaten. (Smiling blankly) But at last God allowed him to sit in Heaven, in recognition of past merits.

F. (doubtful): Well …

T.W.: Yen-lo is the Serpent-Devil of the Garden of Eden …

F.: Is he? Ah!

T.W.: … and when Eve heeded his words, she was driven forth, and her children were drowned in the Great Rain. But Yen-lo seeks ever to steal men’s souls, ensnaring their senses with beautiful temptations … there were beautiful handmaidens in Heaven …

This seemed to give him an idea, for the husky voice, which had been droning away as at a lesson learned, trailed off, and he turned to stare at the splendid naked nymph kneeling beside him. It was the first sign of intelligence I’d seen in him, for he was plainly madder than Bedlam; his mouth twitched, and he came up from his reclining position to gape, and then to reach out and fondle her neck and shoulder and arm. She stayed stock-still; he leaned closer, gaping, and I had to strain to hear.

“…Šwe must strive to discern false beauty from true,” he muttered, “and manfully resist Yen-lo, seeking solace only in that which is pure. So we should study the Book of One Hundred Correct Things. Let us hear now how we may resist temptation.”

I’d have thought it was the last thing he needed to hear just then, but it was evidently a cue, for the kneeling beauty came to life with a sudden shudder that caused his Heavenly Majesty to grunt alarmingly and gape wider than ever. She lifted her scroll and began to read in a shrill, breathless little voice:

“Temptation must be eradicated from the world, and from the human mind. By sight, by scent, by touch may temptation be aroused. Temptation is caused by the original sin of lust, in the beginning of the world.”

Well, no one was going to argue with that, least of all Flashy, grinding his teeth, or the Tien Wang, staring and hanging on every word, so to speak. Then he lay back with a gentle groan, as she leaned forward over him, reading rapturously.

“Temptation results from indecision. As a homeless person wanders, seeking relief, so the unstable mind is always subject to temptation, which beguiles the senses of the unwary, or,” her voice sank to a whisper, “those who lack the power of decision.”

She sighed convulsively, no doubt at the pathos of the thing, and with difficulty I restrained a sharp cry. The Tien Wang, on the other hand, emitted a low, percolating sound, staring up at them like one who lacked the power of decision but would get round to it presently.

“A mind lured by temptation will deteriorate from day to day,” whispers the reading girl soulfully, and shook her pagoda, which tinkled. “Conscience will perish. Ah, beware when conscience perishes, for then … then lust will grow.”

There was much in what she said, as the veins standing out on my bulging forehead testified. She’d been practically suffocating him, but now she straightened up, rolling her scroll, and his majesty gave a little whimper, and reached up a pawing hand. At the same moment the female at my feet stirred, gliding up to rest her arms on the divan, blast her, her hand straying on to his knee. He gaped vacantly at her, going red in the face and breathing with difficulty, looked back at the reading girl, who was opening another scroll, and began to growl – whether it was possible for his mind to deteriorate any further was doubtful, but plainly conscience was about to perish.

“As lust grows, and conscience dies, the Devil will seize his opportunity,” croons the reading hussy, and I contemplated her twin’s alabaster bottom, poised within easy reach, and wondered if I dared play the Devil myself. In the nick of time I recalled that this panting idiot on the couch was the monster who had slaughtered millions and took heads off for adultery; God knew what he did to molesters of the Heavenly Harem. I bit my knuckles instead, watching helpless as the reader reached her peroration; the brute was dazedly pawing at her with one hand while the other clutched at her twin, who seemed to be trying to climb into his lap. Suddenly the reading girl flung aside her scroll and lunged down at him, babbling:

“Suppress temptation! Throw out evil! Cleanse the heart! So the felicity of Paradise will be won! Everyone shall conquer temptation, and having thus strengthened himself, will be able to attack the small demons! Universal peace will follow!”

And I’ve no doubt it did, to judge by the gasps and sobs and rhythmic pagoda tinklings which pursued me as I fled a-tiptoe for the archway. Well, it would have been damned bad form to stay, and I swear to God I couldn’t have – not without committing the fearful lèse-majesté of plunging into the mêlée crying “Me, too!” Not that they’d have noticed, probably. The women were ecstatics, and as for that lecherous lunatic with his crimson bowels and visits to heaven – well, aside from being the starkest maniac I’d ever struck, he was also a damned poor host. And he had inspired the Taiping rebellion? It passed belief – but he did, and if you doubt one word of his conversation with me, or his concubine’s recitation, you’ll find every last syllable of them in scholarly works written about him by learned men – all except about Dr Sylvester, for whom I believe I’m the sole authority. And that, you’ll allow, was the sanest part of it.¹⁵

No – he was a raving, dangerous, dreadful madman, and one of the most diabolical powers ever loosed on a suffering world. Hung Hsiu Chu’an, the Coolie King. As to his depravity – in my eyes his one redeeming quality – I’ve told my tale, and you may put it in the balance between those who claim he was a celibate saint, and t’others who say he was topsides with Tiberius. I’ll add only that no one disputes that he lived surrounded by a thousand women, eighty-eight of ’em “wives”. And devil a thought for his guests.

I emerged in the corridor panting like the town bull, to find the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees wide-eyed and palpitating anxiously; by George, she’ll never know how close she came to being dragged off and ravished. But here was Lee, pale and eager.

“You saw him? He spoke with you? What did he say?” He gripped my arm in his excitement, and I had sense enough to take time to reply.

“General Lee,” says I, gulping. “I’ve never seen or heard the like in my life.”

He let out a hissing breath, and then smiled slowly. “I knew it. I knew it. He is like God, is he not?”

“He’s certainly like nothing on earth,” says I, and caught a drift of tantalising perfume from the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees, who had edged up, all eyes and ears. I gritted my teeth and tried not to notice her. “D’ye mind sending her away?” says I hoarsely. “After such an experience I find her presence … distracting.” He snapped a word and she sped off, undulating in a way which brought sweat to my temples.

“I can see you are much moved,” says Lee gently. “It was inevitable, but I am uplifted beyond all expression.” He fairly glowed with holy zeal. “For now that you have seen him, you too have … faith.”

It didn’t sink in for a moment. “D’you mean to say,” I croaked, “…Šthat was why you had me brought … just to see … him?” I gaped at the man. “In God’s name! Did you have to kidnap me? I’d have gone willingly if you’d –”

“There was no time to explain. It was necessary to be secret and sudden – as you saw. I had learned that there were those who would have kept you from his presence if they could. Fortunately, they failed.”

“But … who were they? Why? See here, I might have had my throat cut by those swine, whoever –”

“It does not matter, now. For you have seen him, in his divinity. And now you, too, believe.” He studied my face. “For you do believe, do you not?”

“By God, I do!” cries I fervently. What I believed, I wasn’t about to tell him, which was that his Heavenly King and the whole kit-boodle of them were cracked beyond repair. I’d have a fine report to give Bruce, if ever I got out of their demented clutches. I shook my head like a man awe-struck. “General Lee,” says I solemnly, “I am in your debt. You have opened my eyes to the full.”

“No. He has done that,” says he, looking like Joan of Arc. “Now you can tell your people what manner of being leads the Taiping. They will share your faith.” He nodded, content. “And I can go to Soochow, and later to Shanghai, with a quiet mind. Whatever my enemies may wish, they cannot undo what has been done for you tonight.”

“Amen,” says I, and on that he said that henceforth I could stay at his brother’s place in perfect safety, for now I’d seen the Heavenly King no one would molest me. I assured him again that it had been the biggest thing in my life, and because I’m cursed with curiosity, I asked him: “General – you have been privileged to see the Heavenly King countless times. Tell me, does he usually receive visitors … alone? Or does he have … er … attendants with him?”

He frowned, and then slowly shook his head. “Whenever I have stood in his divine presence,” says he, “I have never been aware of any but him.”

Which suggested either that I had caught his majesty off duty, so to speak, or that his faithful followers were so besotted with worship that they didn’t notice, or didn’t care, when naked trollops climbed all over him. Some damned odd cabinet meetings they must have had. One thing was sure, they didn’t call Lee the Loyal Prince for nothing.

Now I’ve told you plain, at some length, of my first day and night in Nanking, because there’s no better way of showing you what the Taiping was like, and in the two long months I was with them everything I saw merely went to confirm that first impression. I saw much of their city, of their crazy laws and crazier religion, of the might and ruthlessness of the military (when I was with Lee at the capture and sack of Soochow), of the blossoming incompetence of their topheavy administration, of the abyss between the despotic, luxuriating rulers and the miserable slave populace in this glorious revolution dedicated to equality – it’s all in my Dawns and Departures of a Soldier’s Life (one of the volumes D’Israeli’s bailiffs never got their hands on), and ain’t to the point here. Enough to say that I recognised the Taiping as a power that bade fair to engulf China – and was already mad and rotten at the heart.

Don’t mistake me; I don’t preach. You know my morals and ideals, and you won’t find the Archbishop shopping for ’em in a hurry. But I know right from wrong, as perhaps only a scoundrel can, and I’ll say that there was great virtue in the notion of Taiping – if it hadn’t somehow been jarred sideways, and become a perversion, so that the farther it went, the farther it ran off the true. One thing I knew I would tell Bruce: the Manchoos might be a corrupt, unsavoury, awkward crew, but we mustn’t touch this ship of fools with a bargepole – not even if the alternative was to go to war with them. And that was a daunting thought, for the one thing right about the Taiping was its army.

I saw that for myself when Lee took me to Soochow, the last big Imp foothold in the Yangtse valley, about thirty miles south of Nanking and one hundred and fifty from Shanghai. It was a strong place, with heavy fortifications on White Dragon Hill, and as soon as I saw them I put Lee down privately as a bungler who must have been lucky until now, for he’d brought hardly a gun with him. Twenty thousand good infantry, marching like guardsmen and chanting their war-songs, transport and commissariat as fine as you could wish for, the whole advance perfectly conducted – but when I looked at those crenellated walls, with the Imp gunners blazing away long before our vanguard came in range, and the paper tigers and devil banners being waved from ramparts crowded with men … well, it’s your infantry you’ll be wasting, thinks I. How long a siege did he anticipate, I asked him, and he smiled quietly and says:

“My banner will be on White Dragon Hill within three hours.”

And it was. He told me later he had close on three hundred infiltrators inside the walls, disguised as Imp soldiers; they’d been at work with friendly citizens, and at the given time two of the gates were blown open from within, and the Taiping infantry just rolled in like a wave. I’ve never seen the like: those long ranks of red coats simply thundered forward, changing formation as they went, into two hammerheads that engulfed the gates, up went the black death banners, and heedless of the storm of shot that met them those howling devils surged into the city and carried all before them. The battle lasted perhaps an hour, and then the Imps wisely changed sides, and they and the Taipings sacked the place, slaughtering and looting wholesale. I wasn’t inside the walls until next day, by which time it was a smoking, bloodstained ruin; if there was a living citizen left he wasn’t walking about, I can tell you.

“Nothing can withstand the might of the Tien Wang,” says Lee, and I thought, God help Shanghai. I realised then that my soldiering had been of the genteel, polite variety – well-mannered actions like Cawnpore and Balaclava and the Kabul retreat in which at least the occasional prisoner was taken. In China, the idea of war is to kill everything that stirs and burn everything that don’t. Just that.

I was a week at Soochow with Lee, and then he sent me back to Nanking, to ponder and count the weeks till my release. I won’t bore you with their passage; I was well housed and cared for at Lee’s palace, feeding of the best, but nothing to do except loaf and fret and improve my Chinese, and devil a wench to bless myself with, thanks to their godless laws. Which, when I considered what was going on in the Grand Palace of Glory and Light, was enough to make me bay at the stars.

The only diversion I had while I ate the beansprouts of idleness and brooded lewdly on the Bearer of Heavenly Decrees and the Tien Wang’s Heavenly Twins (I was never inside his palace again, by the way) was when Hung Jen-kan would have me over to his house for a prose. The more I saw of him, the better I liked him; he was stout and jolly and full of fun, and was plainly the only dog in the pack with two sane brains to rub together – damned good brains they were, too, as I discovered, and for all his jokes and guffaws he was a dangerous and ambitious man. He had great charm, and when you sat with him in his big cluttered yamen (for he kept nothing like the sybaritic state of the other Wangs; rude comfort was his sort) it was like gossiping with a chum in the gunroom: the place was littered with port bottles, full and empty, along with three Colt revolvers on the side-table, boxes of patent matches, a broken telescope, a well-thumbed Bible next to the Woolwich Manual of Fortification, a shelf packed with jars of Coward’s mixed pickles, bundles of silver ingots tied with red waxed string and thrown carelessly on the bed, an old barometer, piles of French crockery, jade ornaments, tea-cups, a print of the Holy Well in Flintshire propped up against The Young Cricketer’s Companion, and papers, books, and rubbish spread in dusty confusion.

And in the middle of it all, that laughing fat rascal in his untidy yellow robe, swilling port by the pint and eating steak with a knife and fork, pushing the bottle at me, lighting our cheroots, chortling at his own jokes, and crying thanks after his servants – who were the ugliest old crones imaginable, for Jen-kan of all the Wangs kept no harem, or affected any grand style. Aye, it was easy to forget that in little more than a year he’d climbed within a step of supreme power in this crazy revolution, and held in his podgy fingers all the reins of state.¹⁶

The other Wangs were a surly crew of peasants beside him – Hung Jen-ta, the Heavenly King’s elder brother, who gave himself ridiculous airs and sported silk robes of rainbow colours; Ying Wang, the Heroic King, who bit his nails and stuttered; and the formidable Chen Yu-cheng, who had abetted Lee in the great defeat of the Imps a few weeks before; he was from the same stable as the Loyal Prince, but even younger and more handsome, dressed like a plain soldier, never saying a word beyond a grunt, and staring through you with black snake eyes. They said he was the most ferocious of all the Taiping leaders, and I believed it.

One other I met at Jen-kan’s house, a weedy, pathetic little lad of about eleven, tricked out in a gold crown and sceptre and a robe fairly crusted with jewels; everyone fawned on him and knocked head something extravagant, for he was the Tien Kuei, the Junior Lord, son of the Heavenly King – which made him Jesus’s nephew, I suppose.

Possibly they all talked sense in the Council, with Hung Jen-kan, though I doubt it; in public their conversation seemed to consist of childish discussion of the Heavenly King’s latest decree, or poem, or pronouncement, with misquoted references to the Scriptures every other sentence. It was like listening to a gang of labourers who’d got religious mania; it wasn’t real; if I hadn’t had Jen-kan to talk to, I believe I’d have lost all hold on common sense.

At least he could give me occasional news of the world outside, which he did very fairly and humorously (although if I’d known the thoughts that were passing behind that genial chubby mask I’d have got precious little sleep of nights). It was a waiting time, that early summer of ’60, not only for me, but for all China. Elgin had arrived at last, and sailed north with Grant and the Frogs to the Peiho mouth, whence they would march 15,000 strong to Pekin in August, Jen-kan reckoned, though it was doubtful if they would get there before September. By then Lee would have launched his sudden stroke at Shanghai, forcing Bruce to choose one side or t’other at last; meanwhile Jen-kan was bombarding him with letters to which Bruce didn’t reply. So there was a lull through June and July, with Grant and Elgin girding their loins to the north, and Bruce and the Taipings listening for each other at either end of the Yangtse valley. Only one minor portent disturbed the peace, and when Jen-kan told me about it, I couldn’t believe my ears. But it was plain, sober, unlikely truth, as follows:

With Shanghai in uncertainty, the China merchants there had got the notion to raise a mercenary force to help defend the city if the Taipings attacked. According to Jen-kan, it was a bit of a joke – a mob of waterfront rowdies, sailors, deserters, and beachcombers, everyone but the town drunk – oh, no, he was there, too, in force. There were Britons, Yankees, Frogs, wogs, wops, Greeks, every sort of dago – and who d’you think was at the head of this band of angels? None other than Mr Frederick Townsend Ward.

It just shows what can happen when your back’s turned. How he’d graduated from steamboat mate to this new command, I couldn’t imagine, but when they took the field in June it was the biggest farce since Grimaldi retired. For young Fred, not content with guarding Shanghai, led his amazing rabble upriver one fine night to attack a Taiping outpost at Sungkiang. They found the place, for a wonder, but most of ’em were howling drunk by the time they got there, and the Taipings shot the boots off them and they all tumbled back to Shanghai, Ward damning and blinding every step of the way.

But he didn’t give up, not he. Inside the month he was back with another crew, sober this time, and most of ’em Filippino bandits, with a few American and British officers. He’d drilled some sense and order into them, God knows how … and they took Sungkiang, bigod, after a fearful cut-and-thrust in which they lost sixty dead and a hundred wounded – and friend Frederick got a hundred and thirty thousand bucks commission from the China merchants.

Jen-kan was disposed to laugh the whole thing off, but I wasn’t so sure. It was beyond belief … and then again, it wasn’t; I’d only to remember that bright eye and reckless grin, and thank God I was well clear of the dangerous young son-of-a-bitch. And take note, he’d done a small but significant thing: he’d knocked the first dent in the invincible Taiping armour, and started something that was to change the face of China. Little mad Fred. But at the time I knew only what Jen-kan told me, heaving with merriment at the thought of how affronted Lee would be to have this Yankee pup nipping his ankle. “Will he be more wary now, when he marches on Shanghai?” he wondered.

I was doing some wondering on my own account, as July wore out, for Lee was due to march in late August, with me two days ahead of him, and I was counting the time with a will. And then, just after the turn of the month, Jen-kan showed what lay behind his genial mask, and frightened the life out of me.

We were boozing in his yamen after luncheon, and he was telling me of Ward’s latest exploit – a slap at another Taiping outpost, Chingpu, with three hundred men. Unluckily for him the rebels had ten thousand under two good leaders, Chow the Taiping, and Savage, a Royal Navy deserter; they’d torn Ward’s attack to bits, killing about a hundred, and the bold Fred had been carried home with five wounds.

“But they say he will come back to Chingpu!” cries Jen-kan. “Poor fellow! Loyal Prince Lee himself has gone down from Soochow to take command; he will crack this Ward under his thumbnail, and then …” he beamed, filling my glass, “…Šhe will sweep on to Shangahi.”

I sat up at this. “When do I go? Two weeks?”

He studied me for a long moment, with his fat crafty grin, and pulled his old robe round his big shoulders. “Let us talk outside … in English,” says he, collaring the bottle, and we strolled out into the warm sunshine, Jen-kan blinking contentedly at his miniature garden – you know the kind of thing, from Chinese exhibitions: dwarf trees and flowers set among tiny streams and lakes and waterfalls, with doll’s-house pagodas and bridges all to scale, like Lilliput.

“Why do we love things in little?” muses Jen-kan, admiring the line of tiny palms that fringed the garden. “Do they make us feel like giants … or gods, perhaps?” He sipped his wine. “Speaking of gods, I have often meant to ask you … what did you think of the Heavenly King?”

Now, neither of us had ever mentioned my visit to the Palace, though I was certain he knew about it. And while he was no fanatic, like Lee, I supposed he must be devoted to the Heavenly Loose-screw, so I hesitated how to answer. He settled his broad bottom on a rock under a tree. “I ask, because I am curious to know what you will tell Mr Bruce.”

“What d’you think I’ll tell him?” says I, wary-like, and he grinned, and then chuckled, and finally laughed so hard he had to set down his glass. He blinked at me, his shoulders shaking.

“Why, that he is a debauched, useless imbecile!” cries he. “What else can you say, except that he is a poor deranged mystic, a hopeless lunatic who makes an obscene parody of Christianity? That is the truth, and that is what you will tell Mr Bruce!”

He took a deep swig, while I stood mum and a mite apprehensive; what he’d said was a capital offence in these parts, and for all I knew, listening might be, too. He shook his head, grinning.

“Oh, but you should have seen him once! In the old days. To know him then, my dear Sir Harry … I intend no blasphemy, but it was to understand the force that must have lived in Christ, or Buddha, or Mahomet. And now, poor soul … a mad shell, and nothing left within except that strange power that can still inspire devotion in folk like the Loyal Prince Lee.” He chuckled. “Even in people like me, sometimes. Enough to make me wish you had not seen him that night. I would have prevented it, but I learned of Lee’s intention too late – those were my men who intervened in the garden … unsuccessfully. Four of them died.” He gave an amused snort that made my skin crawl. “And, do you know – next day Lee and I greeted each other as usual, and said – nothing! We Taiping politicians are very discreet. Let me fill your glass.”

I wasn’t liking this one bit. He’d never been this forthcoming before, and when great men wax confidential I find myself taking furtive looks over my shoulder. I just had to think of Palmerston.

“I saw Lee’s purpose, of course,” says the pot-bellied rascal. “He hoped you would fall under our divine ruler’s spell, become a fanatical advocate of Anglo-Taiping alliance, and convince Mr Bruce likewise.” He shook his bullet head. “Poor Lee, he is such an optimist. With respect, my dear Sir Harry, soldiers should not meddle in affairs of state.” I was with him there. “For now I was in a difficulty. Until that night I had accepted, though without enthusiasm, Lee’s plan of marching on Shanghai and forcing Britain’s hand. But once you had seen the Tien Wang … well, I asked myself what must follow when you reported his deplorable condition to Mr Bruce. Alas,” he consoled himself with another hefty gulp, “it was all too plain. Whatever force we took to Shanghai, we could never persuade Britain to recognise a regime led by such a creature! Mr Bruce would only have to picture the reaction of Prince Albert and the Church of England. They would fight us, rather. No … whatever hope we had of an alliance must perish the moment you set foot in Bruce’s office.”

If there’s one thing that can make me puke with terror, it’s having an Oriental despot tell me I’m inconvenient. “You think I’d be giving Bruce news?” I blurted. ‘Dammit, the whole world knows your Heavenly King’s a raving idiot!”

“No, I think not,” says he mildly. “Some may suspect it, but most charitably regard the rumours as Imp propaganda and missionary gossip. They would not know the full deplorable truth … until you told them.” He looked wistfully at the bottle, now empty. “And then, we agree, Mr Bruce would reject us – and Lee would take Shanghai by storm, with all the horrors of sack and slaughter inevitable in such a victory, and we would be at war with Britain. A war we could not hope to win.” He sighed heavily. “It seemed to me that our only hope must be that your report never reached Mr Bruce, in which case, happily ignorant of the Tien Wang’s condition, he might well allow Lee to occupy Shanghai peacefully. Ah … you are not drinking, Sir Harry?”

My reply to this was an apoplectic croak, and he brightened.

“In that case, may I take your glass? Being fat, I am slothful, and it seems a long way to the house for another bottle. I thank you.” He drained my glass and wiped his lips contentedly. “I do like port, I confess.”

“But … but … look here!” I interrupted, babbling. “Don’t you see, it won’t matter a bit if they know the Heavenly King’s cracked! Because I can tell ’em that you’re not, and that you’re guiding the revolution … sir … not that mad doxy-galloper! I swear that when Bruce knows you’re in charge – why, he’ll be far more inclined to accept the Taiping, knowing you have it in hand … make a treaty, even –”

“Why, you are jolly kind!” beams the bloated Buddha. “But, alas, it would not be true. Lee is already as powerful as I, and when he succeeds at Shanghai, whether by persuasion or storm, it will be a triumph which cannot fail to enhance him and eclipse me utterly. It was while I was considering your own position that this fact burst on me with blinding force – I could see no issue at Shanghai that would not increase Lee’s power and undermine my own. And that was terrible to contemplate … no, it is no use, we must have the other bottle!”

And he was off to the house like an obese whippet, kilting up his robe, his fat calves wobbling, while I sat alarmed and bewildered. He came back flourishing a bottle, laughing merrily as he resumed his seat and splashed port into our glasses.

“Your good health, Sir Harry!” chortles he, damn his impudence. “Yes … terrible to contemplate. But you mustn’t think I’m jealous; if Lee were a realist, I would make way for him, for he is a splendid soldier who might win the war and establish the Heavenly Kingdom. I hoped so, once.” He shook his head again. “But of late I have seen how blind is his fanaticism, how implicitly he will obey every insane decree from that lunatic he worships. Between them they would make the Taiping a headless centipede, poisonous, clawing without direction – and there would never be an end to this abominable war of extermination. Oh, that’s what it is!” He laughed heartily, chilling my blood. “Do you know why we and the Imps never take prisoners? Because if we did, we could not hold our armies together – if they knew they could be taken prisoner, they would not fight. Consider that hideous fact, Sir Harry, and have some more port.” He reached for the bottle, and I realised he was watching me intently, his fat creased face grinning most oddly.

“Between them, Lee and the Tien Wang will destroy the Taiping,” says he slowly, “unless I can prevent them. And that I can only do if I retain my power – and diminish that of Loyal Prince Lee. A grievous necessity,” sighs the fat hypocrite, beaming happily. “Now, Sir Harry, I wonder if you can foresee – as a strictly neutral observer – how that might be brought about?”

Well, I’d seen where the blubbery villain was headed for some minutes past, and what between flooding relief and fury at the way he’d scared the innards out of me first, I didn’t mince words.

“You mean if Lee falls flat on his arse at Shanghai!”

He looked puzzled – doubtless the expression was seldom heard in the Hong Kong mission where he’d worked. “If Lee were to fail at Shanghai,” I explained. “If he tried to take the place and couldn’t.”

He sucked in port noisily. “But is that possible? Obviously, you have a vested interest in saying that it is, but my dear Sir Harry –” he leaned forward, glittering piggily, “I have been entirely frank with you – dangerously frank – and I trust you to be equally candid with me. You know Mr Bruce’s mind; you know the position at Shanghai. Could Lee be made to fail?”

Of course he knew the answer; he’d been studying it for weeks. “Well, in the first place,” says I, “he’ll not scare Bruce into letting him walk in. He’ll have to fight – and as I told you at our first meeting, it won’t be against a mob of useless Imps who’ll fall down if a Taiping farts at them.” I waited until his bellow of mirth had subsided. “He’ll be meeting British and French regulars for the first time – not many of ’em, but they can be reinforced, given time. We have Sikhs at Chusan, two regiments at Canton –”

“Three,” says he. “I have information.”

I’ll bet he had. “With the fleet lying off Peiho – oh, and this gang of Fred Ward’s for what it’s worth –”

“Lee will have fifty thousand men, remember! Could Shanghai resist such a force?”

The temptation to say we could lick him from China to Cheltenham was irresistible, so I resisted it. He knew the case better than I did, so there was nothing for it but honesty.

“I don’t know. But it could have a damned good try. If Bruce had warning, now, by a messenger he trusted …” I hung on that for a moment, and he nodded “…Šhe’d have two weeks to garrison before Lee arrived. In which case you can wish Lee luck, because by God he’ll need it!”

If you’ve ever seen a fat Chinaman holding four aces, you’ll know how he was staring at me as he envisaged the delightful prospect of Lee disgraced, himself supreme – the deliberate sacrifice of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taiping lives, and the certain loss of Shanghai to the Taiping cause forever, were mere trifles so long as Jen-Kan won his political battle over Lee.¹⁷ Suddenly he gave a little crowing laugh, and filled my glass.

“You confirm my conclusions exactly!” cries he. “Lee will certainly be defeated before Shanghai. Of course, in contriving this I am compromising myself most dangerously, but I know Mr Bruce will be discreet; he and H.M. Government have much to gain from an enlightened control in the Taiping movement. The steamships order, for example, need not be affected by our brief mutual hostilities at Shanghai, which will soon be forgotten. Britain can resume her policy of neutrality, and left to ourselves we shall defeat the Manchoos.” He raised his glass to me. “Your own immediate profit should be considerable – you will be the hero who brought the momentous warning that saved Shanghai. I drink to your further advancement, my friend.” He smacked his liver lips and leaned back, blinking up at the sunlight filtering through the fronds overhead. “I foresee happy times.”

He had it all pat, the fat, grinning, ruthless scoundrel – but, d’you know, I can’t say he was a whit worse than any other statesman of my acquaintance, and a sight jollier than most. I asked when I would go.

“Tonight,” says he, “it is all arranged, with complete secrecy. I shall easily conceal your absence until the appropriate time, two weeks hence, when I will send word to Lee – who should be at Chingpu by now – that his advance to Shanghai can begin.” He giggled and took another mammoth swig of port. “Your escort will take you as far as Chingpu, by the way, where by all accounts your friend Mr Ward will be in the vicinity. But you will keep well clear of Chingpu itself. Lee would not be pleased to see you.” He turned to grin at me. “We know what you will tell Mr Bruce of the Heavenly King (regrettable, but there it is), and of the Loyal Prince Lee … I wonder what you will say of Hung Jen-Kan?”

“That he drinks port at the wrong time of day.”

He choked on his glass. “You intend to ruin my reputation, in fact. Ah, well, I am sure Mr Bruce will receive an honest account from you. The fact that it will be totally misleading is by the way.” He heaved another of his mountainous sighs.

“You imagine I act out of unscrupulous self-interest; true, all revolutionaries do. They agitate and harangue and justify every villainy in the name of high ideals; they lie, to delude the people, whom they hold in contempt. They seek nothing but their personal ends – my only defence is that my ends are modest ones. I seek power to see the revolution accomplished; after that, I have no wish to rule. I want the biggest library in China, and to visit my cousins in San Francisco, and to read the Lesson, just once, in an English country church.” He began to shake with laughter again. “Tell Mr Bruce that. He won’t believe a word of it. Oh, and you will not forget to mention the steamships? An order worth a million, remember – whatever happens with Lee.” He looked like a contented pig. “As Superintendent of Trade, Mr Bruce will not overlook the importance of the almighty dollar.”¹⁸