Читать книгу The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 59

It was one thing to decide to go on Solomon’s cruise, but quite another to get safe aboard; I had to spend ten days lurking in and about London like a gunpowder plotter, starting at my own shadow and keeping an eye skinned for the Duke’s pluggers – and Daedalus Tighe’s. You may think I was over-timid, and the danger none so great, but you don’t know what people like the Duke were capable of in my young days; they thought they were still in the eighteenth century, and if you offended ’em they could have their bullies thrash you, and then trust to their title to keep them clear of the consequences, I was never a Reform Bill man myself, but there’s no doubt the aristocracy needed its comb cutting.

In any event, it required no great arithmetic to decide to flee the country for a spell. It was sickening to have to give up the Life Guards, but if Tighe spread a scandal about me it might well force me to resign anyway – you could be an imbecile viscount with a cleft palate and still fit to command in the Household Brigade, but if they found you were taking a bookie’s tin for favours, heaven help you, however famous a soldier you were. So there was nothing for it but to lie doggo until the boat sailed, and make one furtive visit to Horse Guards to tip Uncle Bindley the bad news. He quivered with disbelief down the length of his aristocratic spine when I told him.

“Do I apprehend,” says he, “that you are refusing an appointment – free of purchase, may I remind you – in the Household Brigade, which has been specially procured for you at Lord Wellington’s instance, in order to go junketing abroad with your wife, her extraordinary father, and this … this person from Threadneedle Street?” He shuddered. “It is nothing short of commercial travelling.”

“Can’t be helped,” says I. “There’s no staying in England just now.”

“You realize this is tantamount to refusing an honour from the Throne itself? That you can never again hope for any similar mark of favour? I know that you are dead to most dictates of decent behaviour and common discretion, but surely even you can see—”

“D---t, uncle!” cries I. “I’ve got to go!”

He squinted down his long nose. “You sound almost desperate. Am I right in supposing there will be some scandal if you do not?”

“Yes,” says I, reluctantly.

“Well, then that is entirely different,” cries he. “Why could you not say so at once? I suppose it is some woman or other.”

I admitted it, and dropped a hint that the Duke of—was involved, but that it was all a misunderstanding, and Bindley sniffed again and said he had never known a time when the quality of the House of Peers was quite so low. He would speak to Wellington, he said, and since it was advisable for the family’s credit that I should not be seen to be cutting the painter, he would see if some official colour couldn’t be given to my Far Eastern visit. The result was that a day or two later, at the room over the pawn-shop where I was hiding out, I got a note instructing me to proceed forthwith to Singapore, there to examine and approve the first consignment of Australian horses which would be arriving next spring¹² for the Company’s Indian Army. Well done, old Bindley; he had his uses.

So then it was just a question of skulking down to Dover for the last of the month, which I accomplished, arriving after dark and legging it along the crowded quay with my valise, hoping to G-d that neither Tighe nor the Duke had camped out their ruffians to intercept me (they hadn’t, of course, but if I’ve lived this long it’s because I’ve always feared the worst and been ready for it). A boat took me out to Solomon’s steam-brig, and there was a great reunion with my loved ones – Elspeth all over me clamouring to know where I had been, she was quite distracted, and Old Morrison grunting: “Huh, ye’ve come, at the coo’s tail as usual, “and muttering about a thief in the night. Solomon seemed delighted to see me, but I wasn’t fooled – he was just masking his displeasure that he wouldn’t have a clear run at Elspeth. That quite consoled me to making the voyage; it might be d---lish inconvenient, in some ways, and I couldn’t be quite easy in my mind at venturing East again, but at least I’d have my flighty piece under my eye. Indeed, when I reflected, that was my prime reason for going, and rated even above escaping Tighe and the Duke; looking back from mid-Channel, they didn’t seem nearly so terrible, and I resigned myself to enjoying the cruise; why, it might turn out to be quite fun.

I’ll give it to Solomon, he hadn’t lied about the luxury of his brig, the Sulu Queen. She was quite the latest thing in screw vessels, driven by a wheel through her keel, twin-masted for sail, and with her funnel well back, so that the whole forward deck, which was reserved for us, was quite free of the belching smoke which covered the stern with smuts and left a great black cloud in our wake. Our cabins were under-deck aft, though, out of the reek, and they were tip-top; oak furniture screwed down, Persian carpets, panelled bulkheads with watercolour paintings, a mirrored dressing-table that had Elspeth clapping her hands, Chinese curtains, excellent crystal and a well-stocked cellarette, clockwork fans, and a double bed with silk sheets that would have done credit to a New Orleans sporting-house. Well, thinks I, this is better than riding the gridiron^a; we’ll be right at home here.

The rest of the appointment was to match; the saloon, where we dined, couldn’t have been bettered for grub, liquor and service – even old Morrison, who’d been groaning reluctantly, I gathered, ever since he’d agreed to come, had his final doubts settled when they set his first sea meal before him; he was even seen to smile, which I’ll bet he hadn’t done since he last cut the mill-hands’ wages. Solomon was a splendid host, with every thought for our comfort; he even spent the first week pottering about the coast while we got our sea-legs, and was full of consideration for Elspeth – when she discovered that she had left her toilet water behind he had her maid landed at Portsmouth to go up to Town for some, with instructions to meet us at Plymouth; it was royal treatment, no error, and d--n all expense.

Only two things raised a prickle with me in all this idyllic luxury. One was the crew: there wasn’t a white face among ’em. When I was helped aboard that first night, it was by two grinning yellow-faced rascals in reefer jackets and bare feet; I tried ’em in Hindi, but they just grinned with brown fangs and shook their heads. Solomon explained that they were Malays; he had a few half-caste Arabs aboard as well, who were his engineers and black gang, but no Europeans except the skipper, a surly enough Frog with a touch of nigger in his hair, who messed in his cabin, so that we never saw him, hardly. I didn’t quite care for the all-yellow crew, though – I like to hear a British or Yankee voice in the foc’sle; it’s reassuring-like. Still, Solomon was a Far East trader, and part-breed himself, so it was perhaps natural enough. He had ’em under his heel, too, and they kept well clear of us, except for the Chink stewards, who were sleek and silent and first-rate.

The other thing was that the Sulu Queen, while she was fitted like a floating palace, carried ten guns, which is about as many as a brig will bear. I said it seemed a lot for a pleasure-yacht, and Solomon smiled and says:

“She is too valuable a vessel to risk, in Far Eastern waters, where even the British and Dutch navies can afford little protection. And” – bowing to us – “she carries a precious cargo. Piracy is not unknown in the islands, you know, and while its victims are usually defenceless native craft – well, I believe in being over-cautious.”

“Ye mean – there’s danger?” goggled Morrison.

“Not,” says Solomon, “with ten guns aboard.”

And to settle old Morrison’s qualms, and show off to Elspeth, he had all forty of his crew perform a gun practice for our benefit. They were handy, all right, scampering about the white-scrubbed deck in their tunics and short breeches, running out the pieces and ramming home cold shot to the squeal of the Arab bosun’s pipe, precise as guardsmen, and afterwards standing stock-still by their guns, like so many yellow idols. Then they performed cutlass-drill and arms drill, moving like clockwork, and I had to admit that trained troops couldn’t have shaped better; what with her speed and handiness, the Sulu Queen was fit to tackle anything short of a man-of-war.

“It is merely precaution piled on precaution,” says Solomon. “My estates lie on peaceful lanes, on the Malay mainland for the most part, and I take care never to venture where I might be blown into less friendly waters. But I believe in being prepared,” and he went on to talk about his iron water-tanks, and stores of sealed food – I’d still have been happier to see a few white faces and brown whiskers around us. We were three white folk – and Solomon himself, of course – and we were outward bound, after all.

However, these thoughts were soon dispelled in the interest of the voyage. I shan’t bore you with descriptions, but I’m bound to say it was the pleasantest cruise of my life, and we never noticed how the weeks slipped by. Solomon had spoken of three months to Singapore; in fact, it took us more than twice as long, and we never grudged a minute of it. Through the summer we cruised gently along the French and Spanish coasts, looking in at Brest and Vigo and Lisbon, being entertained lavishly by local gentry – for Solomon seemed to have a genius for easy acquaintance – and then dipping on down the African coast, into the warm latitudes. I can look back now and say I’ve made that run more times than I can count, in everything from an Indiaman to a Middle Passage slaver, but this was not like any common voyage – why, we picnicked on Moroccan beaches, made excursions to desert ruins beyond Casablanca, were carried on camels with veiled drivers, strolled in Berber market-places, watched fire-dancers under the massive walls of old corsair castles, saw wild tribesmen run their horse races, took coffee with turbaned, white-bearded governors, and even bathed in warm blue water lapping on miles and miles of empty silver sand with palms nodding in the breeze – and every evening there was the luxury of the Sulu Queen to return to, with its snowy cloths and sparkling silver and crystal, and the delicate Chink stewards attending to every want in the cool dimness of the saloon. Well, I’ve been a Crown Prince, once, in my wanderings, but I’ve never seen the like of that voyage.

“It is a fairy-tale!” Elspeth kept exclaiming, and even old Morrison admitted it wasn’t half bad – the old b----rd became positively mellow, as why shouldn’t he, waited on hand and foot, with two slant-eyed and muscular yellow devils to carry him ashore and bear him in a palki on our excursions? “It’s daein’ me guid,” says he, “I can feel the benefit.” And Elspeth would sigh dreamily while they fanned her in the shade, and Solomon would smile and beckon the steward to put more ice in the glasses – oh, aye, he even had a patent ice-house stowed away somewhere, down by the keel.

Farther south, along the jungly and desert coasts, there was no lack of entertainment – a cruise up a forest river in the ship’s launch, with Elspeth wide-eyed at the sight of crocodiles, which made her shudder deliciously, or laughing at the antics of monkeys and marvelling at the brilliance of foliage and bird-life. “Did I not tell you, Diana, how splendid it would be?” Solomon would say, and Elspeth would exclaim rapturously, “Oh, you did, you did – but this is quite beyond imagination!” Or there would be flying-fish, and porpoises, and once we were round the Cape – where we spent a week, dining out ashore and attending a ball at the Governor’s, which pleased Elspeth no end – there was the real deep blue sea of the Indian Ocean, and more marvels for my insatiable relatives. We began the long haul across to India in perfect weather, and at night Solomon would fetch his guitar and sing dago dirges in the dusk, with Elspeth drowsing on a daybed by the rail, while Morrison cheated me at écarté, or we would play whist, or just laze the time contentedly away. It was tame stuff, if you like, but I put up with it – and kept my eye on Solomon.

For there was no doubt about it, he changed as the voyage progressed. He took the sun pretty strong, and was soon the brownest thing aboard, but in other ways, too, I was reminded that he was at least half-dago or native; instead of the customary shirt sleeves and trousers he took to wearing a tunic and sarong, saying jokingly that it was the proper tropical style; next it was bare feet, and once when the crew were shark-fishing Solomon took a hand at hauling in the huge threshing monster – if you had seen him, stripped to the waist, his great bronze body dripping with sweat, yelling as he heaved on the line and jabbering orders to his men in coast lingo … well, you’d have wondered if it was the same chap who’d been bowling slow lobs at Canterbury, or talking City prices over the port.

Afterwards, when he came to sit on the deck for an iced soda, I noticed Elspeth glancing at his splendid shoulders in a lazy sort of way, and the glitter in his dark eyes as he swept back his moist black hair and smiled at her – he’d been the perfect family friend for months, mind you, never so much as a fondling paw out of place – and I thought, hollo, he’s looking d----d dashing and romantic these days. To make it worse, he’d started growing a chin-beard, a sort of nigger imperial; Elspeth said it gave him quite the corsair touch, so I made a note to roger her twice that night, just to quell these girlish fancies. All this reading Byron ain’t good for young women.

It was the very next day that we came on deck to see a huge green coastline some miles to port; jungle-clad slopes beyond the beach, and mountains behind, and Elspeth cried out to know where it might be. Solomon laughed in an odd way as he came to the rail beside us.

“That’s the strangest country, perhaps, in the whole wide world,” says he. “The strangest – and the most savage and cruel. Few Europeans go there, but I have visited it – it’s very rich, you see,” he went on, turning to old Morrison, “gums and balsam, sugar and silk, indigo and spices – I believe there is coal and iron also. I have hopes of improving on the little trade I have started there. But they are a wild, terrible people; one has to tread warily – and keep an eye on your beached boat.”

“Why, Don Solomon!” cries Elspeth. “We shall not land there, surely?”

“I shall,” says he, “but not you; the Sulu Queen will lie well off – out of any possible danger.”

“What danger?” says I. “Cannibals in war canoes?” He laughed.

“Not quite. Would you believe it if I told you that the capital of that country contains fifty thousand people, half of ’em slaves? That it is ruled by a monstrous black queen, who dresses in the height of eighteenth-century fashion, eats with her fingers from a table laden with gold and silver European cutlery, with place-cards at each chair and wall-paper showing Napoleon’s victories on the wall – and having dined she will go out to watch robbers being burned alive and Christians crucified? That her bodyguard go almost naked – but with pipe-clayed cartridge belts, behind a band playing ‘The British Grenadiers’? That her chief pleasures are torture and slaughter – why, I have seen a ritual execution at which hundreds were buried alive, sawn in half, hurled from—”

“No, Don Solomon, no!” squeals Elspeth, covering her ears, and old Morrison muttered about respecting the presence of ladies – now, the Don Solomon of London would never have mentioned such horrors to a lady, and if he had, he’d have been profuse in his apologies. But here he just smiled and shrugged, and passed on to talk of birds and beasts such as were known nowhere else, great coloured spiders in the jungle, fantastic chameleons, and the curious customs of the native courts, which decided guilt or innocence by giving the accused a special drink and seeing whether he spewed or not; the whole place was ruled by such superstitions and crazy laws, he said, and woe betide the outsider who tried to teach ’em different.

“Odd spot it must be,” says I. “What did you say it was called?”

“Madagascar,” says he, and looked at me. “You have been in some terrible places, Harry – well, if ever you chance to be wrecked there” – and he nodded at the green shore – “pray that you have a bullet left for yourself.” He glanced to see that Elspeth was out of earshot. “The fate of any stranger cast on those shores is too shocking to contemplate; they say the queen has only two uses for foreign men – first, to subdue them to her will, if you follow me, and afterwards, to destroy them by the most fearful tortures she can devise.”

“Playful little lady, is she?”

“You think I’m joking? My dear chap, she kills between twenty and thirty thousand human beings each year – she means to exterminate all tribes except her own, you see. When she came to the throne, some years ago, she had twenty-five thousand enemies rounded up, forced to kneel all together in one great enclosure, and at a given signal, swish! They were all executed at once. She kept a few thousand over, of course, to hang up sewed in ox skins until they rotted – or to be boiled or roasted to death, by way of a change. That’s Madagascar.”

“Ah, well,” says I, “Brighton for me next year, I think. And you’re going ashore?”

“For a few hours. The governor of Tamitave, up the coast, is a fairly civilized savage – all the ruling class are, including the queen: Bond Street dresses, as I said, and a piano in the palace. That’s a remarkable place, by the way – big as a cathedral, and covered entirely by tiny silver bells. G-d knows what goes on in there.”

“You’ve visited it?”

“I’ve seen it – but not been to tea, as you might say. But I’ve talked to those who have been inside it, and who’ve even seen Queen Ranavalona and lived to tell the tale. Europeans, some of ’em.”

“What are they doing there, for G-d’s sake?”

“The Europeans? Oh, they’re slaves.”

At the time, of course, I suspected he was drawing the long bow to impress the visitors – but he wasn’t. No, every word he’d said about Madagascar was gospel true – and not one-tenth of the truth. I know; I found out for myself.

But from the sea it looked placid enough. Tamitave was apparently a very large village of yellow wooden buildings set out in orderly rows back from the shore; there was a fairish-sized fort with a great stockade some distance from the town, and a few soldiers drilling outside it. While Haslam was ashore, I examined them through the glass – big buck niggers in white kilts, with lances and swords, very smart, and moving in time, which is unusual among black troops. They weren’t true niggers, though, it seemed to me; when Haslam was rowed out to the ship again there was an escorting boat, with a chap in the stern in what was a fair imitation of our naval rig: blue frock coat, epaulettes, cocked hat and braid, saluting away like anything – he looked like a Mexican, if anything, with his round, oily black face, but the rowers were dark brown and woolly haired, with straight noses and quite fine features.

That was the closest I got to the Malagassies, just then, and you may come to agree that it was near enough. Solomon seemed well satisfied with whatever business he had done ashore, and by next morning we were far out to sea with Madagascar forgotten behind us.

Now, I said I wouldn’t weary you with our voyage, so I shall do no more than mention Ceylon and Madras – which is all they deserve, anyway, and take you straight away across the Bengal Bay, past the infernal Andamans, south by the heel of Great Nicobar, and into the steaming straits where the great jellyfishes swim between the mainland of Malaya and the strange jungle island of Sumatra with its man-monkeys, down to the sea where the sun comes from, and the Islands lie ahead of you in a great brilliant chain that runs thousands of miles from the South China Sea to Australia and the far Pacific on the other side of the world. That’s the East – the Islands; and you may take it from one who has India in his bones, there’s no sea so blue, no lands so green, and no sun so bright, as you’ll find beyond Singapore. What was it Solomon had said – “where it’s always morning.” So it was, and in that part of my imagination where I keep the best memories, it always will be.

That’s one side of it. I wasn’t to know, then, that Singapore was the last jumping-off place from civilization into a world as terrible as it was beautiful, rich and savage and cruel beyond belief, of land and seas still unexplored where even the mighty Royal Navy sent only a few questing warships, and the handful of white adventurers who voyaged in survived by the speed of their keels and slept on their guns. It’s quiet now, and the law, British and Dutch, runs from Sunda Strait to the Solomons; the coasts are tamed, the last trophy heads in the long-houses are ancient and shrivelled,¹³ and there’s hardly a man alive who can say he’s heard the war gongs booming as the great robber fleets swept down from the Sulu Sea. Well, I heard ’em, only too clearly, and for all the good I’ve got to say of the Islands, I can tell you that if I’d known on that first voyage what I learned later, I’d have jumped ship at Madras.

But I was happily ignorant, and when we slipped in past the green sugar-loaf islands one fine April morning of ’44, and dropped anchor in Singapore roads, it looked safe enough to me. The bay was alive with shipping, a hundred square-riggers if there was one: huge Indiamen under the gridiron flag, tall clippers of the Southern Run wearing the Stars and Stripes, British merchantmen by the bucketful, ships of every nationality – Solomon pointed out the blue crossed anchors of Russia, the red and gold bars of Spain, the blue and yellow of Sweden, even a gold lion which he said was Venice. Closer in, the tubby junks and long trading praus were packed so close it seemed you could have walked on them right across the bay, fairly seething with half-naked crews of Malays, Chinese, and every colour from pale yellow to jet black, deafening us with their high-pitched chatter as Solomon’s rowers threaded the launch through to the river quay. There it was bedlam; all Asia seemed to have congregated on the landing, bringing their pungent smells and deafening sounds with them.

There were coolies everywhere, in straw hats or dirty turbans, staggering half-naked under bales and boxes – they swarmed on the quays, on the sampans that choked the river, round the warehouses and go-downs, and through them pushed Yankee captains in their short jackets and tall hats, removing their cheroots from their rat-trap jaws only to spit and cuss; Armenian Jews in black coats and long beards, all babbling; British blue-jackets in canvas shirts and ducks; long-moustached Chinese merchants in their round caps, borne in palkis; British traders from the Sundas with their pistols on their hips; leathery clipper men in pilot caps, shouting oaths of Liverpool and New York; planters in wideawakes making play among the niggers with their stout canes; a file of prisoners tramping by in leg-irons, with scarlet-coated soldiers herding them and bawling the step – I heard English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Hindi all in the first minute, and most of the accents of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the American seaboards to boot. God knows what the native tongues were, but they were all being used at full pitch, and after the comparative quiet we’d been used to it was enough to make you dizzy. The stink was fearful, too.

Of course, waterfronts are much the same everywhere; once you were away from the river, out on the “Mayfair” side of the town, which lay east along Beach Road, it was pleasant, and that was where Solomon had his house, a fine two-storey mansion set in an extensive garden, facing the sea. We were installed in cool, airy rooms, all complete with fans and screens, legions of Chinese servants to look after us, cold drinks by the gallon, and nothing to do but rest in luxury and recover from the rigours of our voyage, which we did for the next three weeks.

Old Morrison was all for it; he had gluttonized to such a tune that he’d put on flesh alarmingly, and all he wanted to do was lie down, belching and refreshing his ill nature in a hot climate. Elspeth, on the other hand, must be up and doing at once; she was off almost before she’d changed her shift, carried in a palki by menials, to pay calls on what she called The Society People, find out who was who, and squander money in the shops and bazaars. Solomon pointed her in the right directions, made introductions, and then explained apologetically that he had weeks of work to do in his ’changing-house at the quays; after that, he assured us, we would set off on our tour of his possessions, which I gathered lay somewhere on the east coast of the peninsula.

So there was I, at a loose end – and not before time. I didn’t know when I had been so d---ably bored; a cruise of wonders was all very well, but I’d had my bellyful of Solomon and his floating mansion with its immaculate appointments and unvarying luxury and everything so exactly, confoundedly right, and the finest foods and wines coming out of my ears – I was surfeited with perfection, and sick of the sight of old Morrison’s ugly mug, and the sound of Elspeth’s unwearying imbecile chatter, and having not a d----d thing to do but stuff myself and sleep. I’d not had a scrap of vicious amusement for six months – and, for me, that’s a lifetime of going hungry. Well, thinks I, if Singapore, the fleshpot of the Orient, can’t supply my urgent needs, and give me enough assorted depravity in three weeks to last the long voyage home, there’s something amiss; just let me shave and change my shirt, and we’ll stand this town on its head.

I took a long slant, to get my bearings, and then plunged in, slavering. There were eight cross-streets in the Mayfair section, where all the fine houses were, and a large upland park below Governor’s Hill where Society congregated in the evening – and, by Jove, wasn’t it wild work, though? Why, you might raise your hat to as many as a hundred couples in two hours, and when you were fagged out with this, there was the frantic debauch of a gig drive along Beach Road, to look at the ships, or a dance at the assembly rooms, where a married woman might even polka with you, provided your wife and her husband were on hand – unmarried ladies didn’t waltz, except with each other, the daring little hussies.

Then there were dinners at Dutranquoy’s Hotel, with discussions afterwards about whether the Raffles Club oughtn’t to be revived, and how the building of the new Chinese Pauper Hospital was progressing, and the price of sugar, and the latest leaderette in the “Free Press”, and for the wilder spirits, a game of pyramids on the hotel billiard table – I played twice, and felt soiled at my beastly indulgence. Elspeth was indefatigable, of course, in her pursuit of pleasure, and dragged me to every soirée, ball, and junket that she could find, including church twice each Sunday, and the subscription meetings for the new theatre, and several times we even met Colonel Butter worth, the Governor – well, thinks I, this is Singapore, to be sure, but I’m shot if I can stand this pace for long.¹⁴

Once, I asked a likely-looking chap – you could tell he was a rake; he was using pomade – where the less respectable entertainments were to be found, supposing there were any, and he coloured a bit and shuffled and said:

“Well, there are the Chinese processions – but not many people would care to be seen looking at them, I dare say. They begin in the – ahem – native quarter, you know.”

“By George,” says I, “that’s bad. Perhaps we could look at ’em for just a moment, though – we needn’t stay long.”

He didn’t care for it, but I prevailed on him, and we hurried down to the promenade, with him muttering that it wasn’t at all the thing, and what Penelope would say if she got to hear of it, he couldn’t imagine. He had me in a fever of excitement, and I was palpitating by the time the procession hove in view – twenty Chinks beating gongs and letting off smoke and whistles, and half a dozen urchins dressed in Tartar costumes with umbrellas, all making a h--l of a din.

“Is that it?” says I.

“That’s it,” says he. “Come along, do – or someone will see us. It’s – it’s not done, you know, to be seen at these native displays, my dear Flashman.”

“I’m surprised the authorities allow it,” says I, and he said the “Free Press” was very hot against it, but the Indian processions were even worse, with chaps swinging on poles and carrying torches, and he’d even heard rumours that there were fakirs walking on hot coals, on the other side of the river.

That was what put me on the right track. I’d seen the waterfront, of course, with its great array of commercial buildings and warehouses, but the native town that lay beyond it, on the west bank, had looked pretty seedy and hardly worth exploring. Being desperate by this time, I ventured across one evening when Elspeth was at some female gathering, and it was like stepping into a brave new world.

Beyond the shanties was China Town – streets brilliantly-lit with lanterns, gaming houses and casinos roaring away on every corner, side-shows and acrobats – Hindoo fire-walkers, too, my pomaded chum had been right – pimps accosting you every other step, with promises of their sister who was, of course, every bit as voluptuous as Queen Victoria (how our sovereign lady became the carnal yardstick for the entire Orient through most of the last century, I’ve never been able to figure; possibly they imagined all true Britons lusted after her), and on all sides, enough popsy to satisfy an army – Chinese girls with faces like pale dolls at the windows; tall, graceful Kling tarts from the Coromandel, swaying past and smiling down their long noses; saucy Malay wenches giggling and beckoning from doorways, popping out their boobies for inspection; it was Vanity Fair come true – but it wouldn’t do, of course. Poxed to a turn, most of ’em; they were all right for the drunken sailors lounging on the verandahs, who didn’t care about being fleeced – and possibly knifed – but I’d have to find better quality than that. I didn’t doubt that I would, and quickly, now that I knew where to begin, but for the present I was content to stroll and look about, brushing off the pimps and the more forward whores, and presently walking back to the river bridge.

And who should I run slap into but Solomon, coming late from his office. He stopped short at sight of me.

“Good G-d,” says he, “you ain’t been in bazaar-town, surely? My dear chap, if I’d known you wanted to see the sights, I’d have arranged an escort – it ain’t the safest place on earth, you know. Not quite your style, either, I’d have thought.”

Well, he knew better than that, but if he wanted to play innocent, I didn’t mind. I said it had been most interesting, like all native towns, and here I was, safe and sound, wasn’t I?

“Sure enough,” says he, laughing and taking my arm. “I was forgetting – you’ve seen quite a bit of local colour in your time. But Singapore’s – well, quite a surprising place, even for an old hand. You’ve heard about our Black-faced gangs, I suppose? Chinese, you know – nothing to do with the tongs or hues, who are the secret societies who rule down yonder – but murderous villains, just the same. They’ve even been coming east of the river lately, I’m told – burglary, kidnapping, that sort of thing, with their faces blacked in soot. Well, an unarmed white civilian on his own – he’s just their meat. If you want to go again” – he gave me a quick look and away – “let me know; there are some really fine eating-houses on the north edge of the native town – the rich Chinese go there, and it’s much more genteel. The Temple of Heaven’s about the best – no sharking or rooking, or anything of that kind, and first-class service. Good cabarets, native dancing … that order of thing, you know.”

Now why, I wondered, was Solomon offering to pimp for me – for that’s what it struck me he was doing. To keep me sinfully amused while he paid court to Elspeth, perhaps – or just in the way of kindness, to steer me to the best brothels in town? I was pondering this when he went on:

“Speaking of rich Chinese – you and Elspeth haven’t met any yet, I suppose? Now they are the most interesting folk in this settlement, altogether – people like Whampoa and Tan Tock Seng. I must arrange that – I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you all shockingly, but when one’s been away for three years – well, there’s a great deal to do, as you can guess.” He grinned whimsically. “Confess it – you’ve found our Singapore gaiety just a trifle tedious. Old Butterworth prosing – and Logan and Dyce ain’t quite Hyde Park style, are they? Ne’er mind – I’ll see to it that you visit one of old Whampoa’s parties – that won’t bore, I promise you!”

And it didn’t. Solomon was as good as his word, and two nights later Elspeth and I and old Morrison were driven out to Whampoa’s estate in a four-wheel palki; it was a superb place, more like a palace than a house, with the garden brilliant with lanterns, and the man himself bowing us in ceremonially at the door. He was a huge, fat Chinese, with a shaven head and a pigtail down to his heels, clad in a black silk robe embroidered with shimmering green and scarlet flowers – straight from Aladdin, except that he had a schooner of sherry in one paw; it never left him, and it was never empty either.

“Welcome to my miserable and lowly dwelling,” says he, doubling over as far as his belly would let him. “That is what the Chinese always say, is it not? In fact, I think my home is perfectly splendid, and quite the best in Singapore – but I can truthfully say it has never entertained a more beautiful visitor.” This was to Elspeth, who was gaping round at the magnificence of lacquered panelling, gold-leafed slender columns, jade ornaments, and silk hangings, with which Whampoa’s establishment appeared to be stuffed. “You shall sit beside me at dinner, lovely golden-haired lady, and while you exclaim at the luxury of my house, I shall flatter your exquisite beauty. So we shall both be assured of a blissful evening, listening to what delights us most.”

Which he did, keeping her entranced beside him, sipping continually at his sherry, while we ate a Chinese banquet in a dining-room that made Versailles look like a garret. The food was atrocious, as Chinese grub always is – some of the soups, and the creamed walnuts, weren’t bad, though – but the servants were the most delightful little Chinese girls, in tight silk dresses each of a different colour; even ancient eggs with sea-weed dressing and carrion sauce don’t seem so bad when they’re offered by a slant-eyed little goer who breathes perfume on you and wriggles in a most entrancing way as she takes your hand in velvet fingers to show you how to manage your chop-sticks. D----d if I could get the hang of it at first; it took two of ’em to show me, one either side, and Elspeth told Whampoa she was sure I’d be much happier with a knife and fork.

There were quite a few in the party, apart from us three and Solomon – Balestier, the American consul, I remember, a jolly Yankee planter with a fund of good stories, and Catchick Moses,¹⁵ a big noise in the Armenian community, who was the decentest Jew I ever met, and struck up an immediate rapport with old Morrison – they got to arguing about interest rates, and when Whampoa joined in, Balestier said he wouldn’t rest until he’d made up a story which began “There was a Chinaman, a Scotchman, and a Jew”, which caused great merriment. It was the cheeriest party I’d struck yet, and no lack of excellent drink, but after a while Whampoa called a halt, and there was a little cabaret, of Chinese songs, and plays, which were the worst kind of pantomime drivel, but very pretty costumes and masks, and then two Chinese dancing girls – exquisite little trollops, but clad from head to foot, alas.

Afterwards Whampoa took Elspeth and me on a tour of his amazing house – all the walls were carved screens, in ivory and ebony, which must have been h---ish draughty, but splendid to look at, and the doors were all oval in shape, with jade handles and gold frames – I reckon half a million might have bought the place. When we were finished, he presented me with a knife, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in the shape of a miniature scimitar – to prove its edge, he dropped a filmy scrap of muslin on the blade, and it fell in half, sheared through by its own insignificant weight. (I’ve never sharpened it since, and it’s as keen as ever, after sixty years.) To Elspeth he gave a model jade horse, whose bridle and stirrups were tiny jade chains, all cut out of one solid block – G-d knows what it was worth.

She scampered off to show it to the others, calling on Solomon to admire it, and Whampoa says quietly to me:

“You have known Mr Solomon Haslam for a long time?”

I said a year or so, in London, and he nodded his great bald head and turned his Buddha-like face to me.

“He is taking you on a cruise round his plantations, I believe. That will be interesting – I must ask him where they are. I should much like to visit them myself some day.”

I said I thought they were on the peninsula, and he nodded gravely and sipped his sherry.

“No doubt they are. He is a man of sufficient shrewdness and enterprise, I think – he does business well.” The sound of Elspeth’s laughter sounded from the dining-room, and Whampoa’s fat yellow face creased in a sudden smile. “How fortunate you are, Mr Flashman. I have, in my humble way – which is not at all humble, you understand – a taste for beautiful things, and especially in women. You have seen” – he fluttered his hand, with its beastly long nails – “that I surround myself with them. But when I see your lady, Elspet’, I understand why the old story-tellers always made their gods and goddesses fair-skinned and golden-haired. If I were forty years younger, I should try to take her from you” – he sluiced down some more Amontillado – “without success, of course. But so much beauty – it is dangerous.”

He looked at me, and I can’t think why, but I felt a chill of sudden fear – not of him, but of what he was saying. Before I could speak, though, Elspeth was back, to exclaim again over her present, and prattle her thanks, and he stood smiling down at her, like some benign, sherry-soaked heathen god.

“Thank me, beautiful child, by coming again to my humble palace, for hereafter it will truly be humble without your presence,” says he. Then we joined the others, and the thanks and compliments flew as we took our leave in that glittering place, and everything was cheery and happy – but I found myself shivering as we went out, which was odd, for it was a warm and balmy night.

I couldn’t account for it, after such a jolly affair, but I went to bed thoroughly out of sorts. At first I put it down to foul Chinese grub, and certainly something gave me the most vivid nightmares, in which I was playing a single-wicket match up and downstairs in Whampoa’s house, and his silky little Chinese tarts were showing me how to hold my bat – that part of it was all right, as they snuggled up, whispering fragrantly and guiding my hands, but all the time I was conscious of dark shapes moving behind the screens, and when Daedalus Tighe bowled to me it was a Chinese lantern that I had to hit, and it went ballooning up into the dark, bursting into a thousand rockets, and Old Morrison and the Duke came jumping out at me in sarongs, crying that I must run all through the house to score a single, at compound interest, and I set off, blundering past the screens, where nameless horrors lurked, and I was trying to catch Solomon, who was flitting like a shadow before me, calling out of the dark that there was no danger, because he carried ten guns, and I could feel someone or something drawing closer behind me, and Elspeth’s voice was calling, fainter and fainter, and I knew if I looked back I should see something terrible – and there I was, gasping into the pillow, my face wet with sweat, and Elspeth snoring peacefully beside me.

It rattled me, I can tell you, because the last time I’d had a nightmare was in Gul Shah’s dungeon, two years before, and that was no happy recollection. (It’s a strange thing, by the way, that I usually have my worst nightmares in jail; I can remember some beauties, in Fort Raim prison, up on the Aral Sea, where I imagined old Morrison and Rudi Starnberg were painting my backside with boot polish, and in Gwalior Fort, where I waltzed in chains with Captain Charity Spring conducting the band, and the beastliest of all was in a Mexican clink during the Juarez business, when I dreamed I was charging the Balaclava guns at the head of a squadron of skeletons in mortar-boards, all chanting “Ab and absque, coram de”, while just ahead of me Lord Cardigan was sailing in his yacht, leering at me and tearing Elspeth’s clothes off. Mind you, I’d been living on chili and beans for a week.)

In any event, I didn’t sleep well after Whampoa’s party, and was in a fine fit of the dismals next day, as a result of which Elspeth and I quarrelled, and she wept and sulked until Solomon came to propose a picnic on the other side of the island. We would sail round in the Sulu Queen, he said, and make a capital day of it. Elspeth cheered up at once, and old Morrison was game, too, but I cried off, pleading indisposition. I knew what I needed to lift my gloom, and it wasn’t an al fresco lunch in the mangrove swamps with those three; let them remove themselves, and it would leave me free to explore China Town at closer quarters, and perhaps sample the menu at one of those exclusive establishments that Solomon had mentioned; the Temple of Heaven was the name that stuck in my mind. Why, they might even have dainty little waitresses like Whampoa’s, to teach you how to use your chopsticks.

So when the three of them had left, Elspeth with her nose in the air because I wasn’t disposed to make up, I loafed about until evening and then whistled up a palki. My bearers jogged away through the crowded streets, and presently, just as dusk was falling, we reached our destination in what seemed to be a pleasant residential district inland from China Town, with big houses half-hidden in groves of trees from which paper lanterns hung; all very quiet and discreet.

The Temple of Heaven was a large frame house on a little hill, entirely surrounded by trees and shrubs, with a winding drive up to the front verandah, which was all dim lights and gentle music and Chinese servants scurrying to make the guests at home. There was a large cool dining-room, where I had an excellent European meal with a bottle and a half of champagne, and I was in capital fettle and ready for mischief when the Hindoo head waiter sidled up to ask if all was in order, and was there anything else that the gentleman required? Would I care to see a cabaret, or an exhibition of Chinese works of art, or a concert, if my tastes were musical, or …

“The whole d----d lot,” says I, “for I ain’t going home till morning, if you know what I mean. I’ve been six months at sea, so drum ’em up, Sambo, and sharp about it.”

He smiled and bowed in his discreet Indian way, clapped his hands, and into the alcove where I was sitting there stepped the most gorgeous creature imaginable. She was Chinese, with blue-black hair coiled above a face that was pearl-like in its perfection and colour, with great slanting eyes, and her gown of crimson silk clung to a shape which English travellers are wont to describe as “a thought too generous for the European taste” but which, if I’d been a classical sculptor, would have had me dropping my hammer and chisel and reaching for the meat. Her arms were bare, and she spread them in the prettiest curtsey, smiling with perfect teeth between lips the colour of good port.

“This is Madame Sabba,” says the waiter. “She will conduct you, if your excellency will permit …?”

“I may, just about,” says I. “Which way’s upstairs?”

I imagined it was the usual style, you see, but Madame Sabba, indicating that I should follow, led the way through an arch and down a long corridor, glancing behind to see that I was following. Which I was, breathing heavy, with my eyes on that trim waist and wobbling bottom; I caught her up at the end door, and was just clutching a handful when I realized that we were on a porch, and she was slipping out of my fond embrace and indicating a palki which was waiting at the foot of the steps.

“What’s this?” says I.

“The entertainment,” says she, “is a little way off. They will take us there.”

“The entertainment,” says I, “is on this very spot.” And I took hold of her, growling, and hauled her against me. By George, she was a randy armful, wriggling against me and pretending she wanted to break loose, while I nuzzled into her, inhaling her perfume and munching away at her lips and face.

“But I am only your guide,” she giggled, turning her face aside. “I shall take you—”

“Just to the nearest bed, ducky. I’ll do the guiding after that.”

“You like – me?” says she, playing coy, while I overhauled her lustfully. “Why, then – this is not suitable, here. We must go a little way – but I believe that when you see what else is offered, you will not care for Sabba.” And she stuck her tongue into my mouth and then pulled me towards the palki. “Come – they will take us quickly.”

“If it’s more than ten yards, it’ll be a wasted trip,” says I, pawing away as we clambered aboard and pulled the curtains. I was properly on the boil, and intent on giving her the business then and there, but to my frustration the palki was one of those double sedans, where you sit opposite each other, and all I could do was paw at her frontage in the dark, swearing as I tried to unbutton her dress, and squeezing at the delights beneath it, while she kissed and fondled, laughing, telling me not to be impatient, and the palki men jogged along, bouncing us in a way that made it impossible to get down to serious work. Where they were taking us I didn’t care; what with champagne and passion I was lost to everything but the scented beauty teasing me in the dark; at last I managed to get one tit clear and was nibbling away when the palki stopped, and Madame Sabba gently disengaged herself.

“A moment,” says she, and I could imagine her adjusting her gown in the darkness. “Wait here,” her fingers gently stroked my lips, there was a glimpse of dusk as she slipped through the palki curtain – and then silence.

I waited, fretting and anticipating, for perhaps half a minute, and then stuck my head out. For a moment I couldn’t make out anything in the gloom, and then I saw that the palki was stopped in a mean-looking street, between dark and shuttered buildings – but of the palki men and Madame Sabba there wasn’t a sign. Just deserted shadow, not a light anywhere, and not a sound except the faint murmur of the town a long way off.

My blank astonishment lasted perhaps two seconds, to be replaced by rage as I tore back the palki curtain and stumbled out, cursing. I hadn’t had time to feel the first chill of fear before I saw the black shapes moving out of the shadows at the end of the street, gliding silently towards me.

I’m not proud of what happened in the next moment. Of course, I was very young and thoughtless, and my great days of instant flight and evasion were still ahead of me, but even so, with my Afghan experience and my native cowardice to boot, my reaction was inexcusable. In my riper years I’d have lost no precious seconds in bemused swearing; long before those stealthy figures even appeared, I’d have realized that Madame Sabba’s disappearance portended deadly danger, and been over the nearest wall and heading for the high country. But now, in my youthful folly and ignorance, I absolutely stood there gaping, and calling out:

“Who the d---l are you, and what d’ye want? Where’s my whore, confound it?”

And then they were running towards me, on silent feet, and I saw in a flash that I’d been lured to my death. Then, at last, was seen Flashy at his best, when it was all but too late. One scream, three strides, and I was leaping for the rickety fence between two houses; for an instant I was astride of it, and had a glimpse of four lean black shapes converging on me at frightening speed; something sang past my head and then I was down and pelting along the alley beyond, hearing the soft thuds behind as they vaulted over after me. I tore ahead full tilt, bawling “Help!” at the top of my lungs, shot round the corner, and ran for dear life down the street beyond.

It was my yellow belly that saved me, nothing else. A hero wouldn’t have stood and fought – not against those odds, in such a place – but he’d at least have glanced back, to see how close the pursuit was, or maybe even have drawn rein to consider which way to run next. Which would have been fatal, for the speed at which they moved was fearful. One glimpse I caught of the leader as I turned the corner – a fell black shape moving like a panther, with something glittering in his hand – and in pure panic I went hurtling on, from one street to another, leaping every obstruction, screaming steadily for aid, but going at my uttermost every stride. That’s what you young chaps have got to remember – when you run, run, full speed, with never a thought for anything else; don’t look or listen or dither even for an instant; let terror have his way, for he’s the best friend you’ve got.

He kept me ahead of the field for a good quarter of a mile, I reckon, through deserted streets and lanes, over fences and yards and ditches, and never a glimpse of a human soul, until I turned a corner and found myself looking down a narrow alley which obviously led to a frequented street, for at the far end there were lanterns and figures moving, and beyond that, against the night sky, the spars and masts of ships under riding lights.

“Help!” I bawled. “Murder! Assassins! H--l and d--ation! Help!”

I was pelting down the alley as I shouted, and now, like a fool, I stole a glance back – there he was, like a black avenging angel gliding round the corner a bare twenty yards behind. I raced on, but in turning my head I’d lost my direction; suddenly there was an empty handcart in my path – left by some infernally careless coolie in the middle of the lane – and in trying to clear it I caught my foot and went sprawling. I was afoot in an instant, ahead of me someone was shouting, but my pursuer had halved the distance behind me, and as I shot another panic-stricken glance over my shoulder I saw his hand go back behind his head, something glittered and whirled at me, a fearful pain drove through my left shoulder, and I went sprawling into a pile of boxes, the flung hatchet clattering to the ground beside me.

He had me now; he came over the handcart like a hurdle racer, landed on the balls of his feet, and as I tried vainly to scramble to cover among the wrecked boxes, he plucked a second hatchet from his belt, poised it in his hand, and took deliberate aim. Behind me, along the alley, I could hear boots pounding, and a voice shouting, but they were too late for me – I can still see that horrible figure in the lantern light, the glistening black paint like a mask across the skull-like Chinese head, the arm swinging back to hurl the hatchet—

“Jingo!” a voice called, and pat on the word something whispered in the air above my head, the hatchet-man shrieked, his body twisted on tip-toe, and to my amazement I saw clearly in silhouette that an object like a short knitting-needle was protruding from beneath his upturned chin. His fingers fluttered at it, and then his whole body seemed to dissolve beneath him, and he sprawled motionless in the alley. Without being conscious of imitation, I followed suit.

If I fainted, though, with pain and shock, it can only have been for a moment, for I became conscious of strong hands raising me, and an English voice saying: “I say, he’s taken a bit of a cut. Here, sit him against the wall.” And there were other voices, in an astonishing jumble: “How’s the Chink?” “Dead as mutton – Jingo hit him full in the crop.” “By Jove, that was neat – I say, look here, though, he’s starting to twitch!” “Well, I’m blessed, the poison’s working, even though he’s dead. If that don’t beat everything!” “Trust our little Jingo – cut his throat and poison him afterwards, just for luck, what?”

I was too dazed to make anything of this, but one word in their crazy discussion struck home in my disordered senses.

“Poison!” I gasped. “The axe – poisoned! My G-d, I’m dying, get a doctor – my arm’s gone dead already—”

And then I opened my eyes, and saw an amazing sight. In front of me was crouching a squat, hideously-featured native, naked save for a loin-cloth, gripping a long bamboo spear. Alongside him stood a huge Arab-looking chap, in white ducks and crimson sash, with a green scarf round his hawk head and a great red-dyed beard rippling down to his waist. There were a couple of other near-naked natives, two or three obvious seamen in ducks and caps, and kneeling at my right side a young, fair-haired fellow in a striped jersey. As motley a crowd as ever I opened eyes on, but when I turned my head to see who was poking painfully at my wounded shoulder, I forgot all about the others – this was the chap to look at.

It was a boy’s face; that was the first impression, in spite of the bronzed, strong lines of it, the touches of grey in the dark curly hair and long side-whiskers, the tough-set mouth and jaw, and the half-healed sword cut that ran from his right brow onto his cheek. He was about forty, and they hadn’t been quiet years, but the dark blue eyes were as innocent as a ten-year-old’s and when he grinned, as he was doing now, you thought at once of stolen apples and tacks on the master’s chair.

“Poison?” says he, ripping away my blood-sodden sleeve. “Not a bit of it. Chink hatchet-men don’t go in for it, you know. That’s for ignorant savages like Jingo here – say ‘How-de-do’ to the gentleman, Jingo.” And while the savage with the spear bobbed his head at me with a frightful grin, this chap left off mauling my shoulder, and reaching over towards the body of my fallen pursuer, pulled the knitting-needle thing from his neck.

“See there,” says he, holding it gingerly, and I saw it was a thin dart about a foot long. “That’s Jingo’s delight – saved your life, I dare say, didn’t it, Jingo? Of course, any Iban worth his salt can hit a farthing at twenty yards, but Jingo can do it at fifty. Radjun poison on the tip – not fatal to humans, as a rule, but it don’t need to be if the dart goes through your jugular, does it?” He tossed the beastly thing aside and poked at my wound again, humming softly:

“Oh, say was you ever in Mobile bay,

A-screwin’ cotton at a dollar a day,

Sing ‘Johnny come down to Hilo’.”

I yelped with pain and he clicked his tongue reprovingly.

“Don’t swear,” says he. “Just excite yourself, and you won’t go to heaven when you die. Anyway, squeaking won’t mend it – it’s just a scrape, two stitches and you’ll be as right as rain.”

“It’s agony!” I groaned. “I’m bleeding buckets!”

“No, you ain’t, either. Anyway, a great big hearty chap like you won’t miss a bit of blood. Mustn’t be a milksop. Why, when I got this” – he touched his scar – “I didn’t even cheep. Did I, Stuart?”

“Yes, you did,” says the fair chap. “Bellowed like a bull and wanted your mother.”

“Not a word of truth in it. Is there, Paitingi?”

The red-bearded Arab spat. “You enjoy bein’ hurt,” says he, in a strong Scotch accent. “Ye gaunae leave the man lyin’ here a’ nicht?”

“We ought to let Mackenzie look at him, J.B.,” says the fair chap. “He’s looking pretty groggy.”

“Shock,” says my ministering angel, who was knotting his handkerchief round my shoulder, to my accompanying moans. “There, now – that’ll do. Yes, let Mac sew him together, and he’ll be ready to tackle twenty hatchet-men tomorrow. Won’t you, old son?” And the grinning madman winked and patted my head. “Why was this one chasing you, by the way? I see he’s a Black-face; they usually hunt in packs.”

Between groans, I told him how my palki had been set on by four of them – I didn’t say anything about Madame Sabba – and he stopped grinning and looked murderous.

“The cowardly, sneaking vagabonds!” cries he. “I don’t know what the police are thinking about – leave it to me and I’d clear the rascals out in a fortnight, wouldn’t I just!” He looked the very man to do it, too. “It’s too bad altogether. You were lucky we happened along, though. Think you can walk? Here, Stuart, help him up. There now,” cries the callous brute, as they hauled me to my feet, “you’re feeling better already, I’ll be bound!”

At any other time I’d have given him a piece of my mind, for if there’s one thing I detest more than another it’s these hearty, selfish, muscular Christians who are forever making light of your troubles when all you want to do is lie whimpering. But I was too dizzy with the agony of my shoulder, and besides, he and his amazing gang of sailors and savages had certainly saved my bacon, so I felt obliged to mutter my thanks as well as I could. J.B. laughed at this and said it was all in a good cause, and duty-free, and they would see me home in a palki. So while some of them set off hallooing to find one, he and the others propped me against the wall, and then they stood about and discussed what they should do with the dead Chinaman.

It was a remarkable conversation, in its way. Someone suggested, sensibly enough, that they should cart him along and give him to the police, but the fair chap, Stuart, said no, they ought to leave him lying and write a letter to the “Free Press” complaining about litter in the streets. The Arab, whose name was Paitingi Ali, and whose Scotch accent I found unbelievable, was for giving him a Christian burial, of all things, and the hideous little native, Jingo, jabbering excitedly and stamping his feet, apparently wanted to cut his head off and take it home.

“Can’t do that,” says Stuart. “You can’t cure it till we get to Kuching, and it’ll stink long before that.”

“I won’t have it,” says the man J. B., who was evidently the leader. “Taking heads is a beastly practice, and one I am resolved to suppress. Mind you,” he added, “Jingo’s suggestion, by his own lights, has a stronger claim to consideration than yours – it is his head, since he killed the fellow. Hollo, though, here’s Crimble with the palki. In you go, old chap.”

I wondered, listening to them, if my wound had made me delirious; either that, or I had fallen in with a party of lunatics. But I was too used up to care; I let them stow me in the palki, and lay half-conscious while they debated where they might find Mackenzie – who I gathered was a doctor – at this time of night. No one seemed to know where he might be, and then someone recalled that he had been going to play chess with Whampoa. I had just enough of my wits left to recall the name, and croak out that Whampoa’s establishment would suit me splendidly – the thought that his delectable little Chinese girls might be employed to nurse me was particularly soothing just then.

“You know Whampoa, do you?” says J.B. “Well, that settles it. Lead on, Stuart. By the way,” says he to me, as they picked up the palki, “my name’s Brooke – James Brooke¹⁶ – known as J.B. You’re Mr …?”

I told him, and even in my reduced condition it was a satisfaction to see the blue eyes open wider in surprise.

“Not the Afghan chap? Well, I’m blessed! Why, I’ve wanted to meet you this two years past! And to think that if we hadn’t happened along, you’d have been …”

My head was swimming with pain and fatigue, and I didn’t hear any more. I have a faint recollection of the palki jogging, and of the voices of my escort singing:

“Oh, say have you seen the plantation boss,

With his black-haired woman and his high-tail hoss,

Sing ‘Johnny come down to Hilo’,

Poor … old … man!”

But I must have gone under, for the next thing I remember is the choking stench of ammonia beneath my nose, and when I opened my eyes there was a glare of light, and I was sitting in a chair in Whampoa’s hall. My coat and shirt had been stripped away, and a burly, black-bearded chap was making me wince and cry out with a scalding hot cloth applied to my wound – sure enough, though, at his elbow was one of those almond-eyed little beauties, holding a bowl of steaming water. She was the only cheery sight in the room, for as I blinked against the light reflected from the magnificence of silver and jade and ivory I saw that the ring of faces watching me was solemn and silent and still as statues.

There was Whampoa himself, in the centre, impassive as ever in his splendid gown of black silk; next to him Catchick Moses, his bald head gleaming and his kindly Jewish face pale with grief; Brooke, not smiling now – his jaw and mouth were set like stone, and beside him the fair boy Stuart was a picture of pity and horror – what the h--l are they staring at, I wondered, for I ain’t as ill as all that, surely? Then Whampoa was talking, and I understood, for what he said made the terror of that night, and the pain of my wound, seem insignificant. He had to repeat it twice before it sank in, and then I could only sit staring at him in horror and disbelief.

“Your beautiful wife, the lady Elspet’, has gone. The man Solomon Haslam has stolen her. The Sulu Queen sailed from Singapore this night, no one knows where.”

[Extract from the diary of Mrs Flashman, July—, 1844]

Lost! lost! lost! I have never been so Surprised in my life. One moment secure in Tranquillity and Affection, among Loving Friends and Relations, shielded by the Devotion of a Constant Husband and Generous Parent – the next, horribly ravished stolen away by one whom who that I had esteemed and trusted almost beyond any gentleman of my acquaintance (excepting of course H. and dear Papa). Shall I ever see them again? What terrible fate lies ahead – ah, I can guess all too well, for I have seen the Loathsome Passion in his eyes, and it is not to be thought that he has so ruthlessly abducted me to any end but one! I am so distracted by Shame and Terror that I believe my Reason will be unseated – lest it should, I must record my Miserable Lot while clarity of thought remains, and I can still hold my trembling pen!

Oh, alas, that I parted from my darling H. in discord and sulks – and over the Merest Trifle, because he threw the coffee pot against the wall and kicked the servant – which was no more than that minion deserved, for his bearing had been Careless and Familiar, and he would not clean his nails before waiting upon us. And I, sullen Wretch that I was, reproved my Dearest One, and took that Bad Servant’s part, so that we were at odds over breakfast, and exchanged only the most Brief Remarks for the better part of the day, with Pouting and Missishness on my unworthy part, and Dark Looks and Exclamations from my Darling – but I see now how forbearing he was with such a Perverse and Contrary creature as me I. Oh, Unhappy, unworthy woman that I am, for it was in Cruel Huff that I accompanied Don S., that Viper, on his proposed excursion, thinking to Punish my dear, patient, sweet Protector – oh, it is I who am punished for my selfish and spiteful conduct!

All went well until our picnic ashore, although I believe the champagne was flat, and made me feel strangely drowsy, so that I must go aboard the vessel to lie down. With no thought of Peril, I slept, and awoke to find we were under way, with Don S. upon deck instructing his people to make all speed. “Where is Papa?” I cried, “and why are we sailing away from land? See, Don Solomon, the sun is sinking; we must return!” His face was Pale, despite his warm complection, and his look was Wild. With brutal frankness, yet in a Moderate Tone, he told me I should Resign myself, for I should never see my dear Papa again.

“What do you mean, Don Solomon?” I cried. “We are bidden to Mrs Alec Middleton’s for dinner!” It was then, in a voice which shook with Feeling, so unlike his usual Controll’d form of address, although I could see he was striving to master his Emotion, that he told me there could be no going back; that he was subject to an Overmastering Passion for me, and had been from our Moment of First Meeting. “The die is cast,” he declared. “I cannot live without you, so I must make you my own, in the face of the world and your husband, tho’ it means I must cut all my ties with civilized life, and take you beyond pursuit, to my own distant kingdom, where, I assure you, you will rule as Queen not only over my Possessions, but over my Heart.”

“This is madness, Don Solomon,” I cried. “I have no clothes with me. Besides, I am a married woman, with a Position in Society.” He said it was no matter for that, and Seizing me suddenly in his Powerful Embrace, which took my breath away, he vowed that I loved him too – that he had known it from Encouraging Signs he had detected in me – which, of course, was the Odious Construction which his Fever’d Brain had placed on the common civilities and little pleasantries which a Lady is accustomed to bestow on a Gentleman.

I was quite overcome at the fearful position in which I found myself, so unexpectedly, but not so much that I lost my capacity for Careful Consideration. For having pleaded with him to repent this madness, which could lead only to shame for myself, and Ruin for him, and even having demeaned myself to the extent of struggling vainly in his crushing embrace, so Brutally Strong and inflexible, as well as calling loudly for assistance and kicking his shins, I became calmer, and feigned to Swoon. I recollected that there is no Emergency beyond the Power of a Resolute Englishwoman, especially if she is Scotch, and took heart from the lesson enjoined by our dominie, Mr Buchanan, at the Renfrew Academy for Young Ladies and Gentlewomen – ah, dear home, am I parted forever from the Scenes of Childhood? – that in Moments of Danger, it is of the first importance to take Accurate Measurements and then act with boldness and dispatch.

Accordingly, I fell limp in my Captor’s cruel – altho’ no doubt he meant it to be Affectionate – clasp, and he relaxing his vigilance, I broke free and sped to the rail, intending to cast myself upon the mercy of the waves, and swim ashore – for I was a Strong Swimmer, and hold the West of Scotland Physical Improvement Society’s certificate for Saving Life from Drowning, having been among the First to receive it when that Institution was founded in 1835, or it may have been 1836, when I was still a child. It was not very far to the shore, either, but before I could fling myself into the sea, in the Trust of Almighty God, I was seized by one of Don S.’s Hideous and Smelling natives, and despite my struggles, I was carried below, at Don S.’s orders, and am confined in the saloon, where I write this melancholy account.

What shall I do? Oh, Harry, Harry, darling Harry, come and save me! Forgive my Thoughtless and Wayward behaviour, and Rescue me from the Clutches of this Improper Person. I think he must be mad – and yet, such Passionate Obsessions are not uncommon, I believe, and I am not insensible of the Regard that I have been shown by others of his sex, who have praised my attractions, so I must not pretend that I do not understand the reason for his Horrid and Ungallant Conduct. My dread is that before Aid can reach me, his Beast may overpower his Finer Feelings – and even now I cannot suppose that he is altogether Dead to Propriety, though how long such Restraint will continue I cannot say.

So come quickly, quickly, my own love, for how can I, weak and defenceless as I am, resist him unaided? I am in terror and distraction at 9 p.m. The weather continues fine.

[End of extract – this is what comes of forward and immodest behaviour – G. de R.]

^a Travelling on an East Indiaman.