Читать книгу Flashman and the Dragon - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 11

There was a time, in my callow youth, when the discovery that I was running not opium but guns would have had me bolting frantically for the nearest patch of timber, protesting that it was nothing to do with me, constable, and the chap in charge would be along in a moment. For opium, into China, was a commonplace if not entirely respectable commodity, whereas firearms, into anywhere, are usually highly contraband, and smuggling ’em is as often as not a capital offence. But if twenty years of highly active service had taught me anything, it was that there is a time to flee in blind panic, and a time to stand fast and think. Given the leisure, I daresay I’d have replaced that chest lid, slapped the slut who was staring wildly at me, and taken a turn on deck to reflect, thus:

Had Mrs Carpenter spun me a web of yarn, and were she and dear Josiah aware that their cargo consisted of the very latest repeating weapons? Undoubtedly; Josiah had supervised the loading of the chests, and what he knew his wife knew, too. Very good, to whom should a God-fearing British clergyman and his wife be smuggling guns in China? Not to any British recipient, and certainly not to the Manchoo Imperials – which left the Taiping rebels. Utterly incredible – until one reflected that there were Taiping enthusiasts among our people, and none warmer than those clergy who believed that the ‘long-haired devils’ were devout Christians fighting the good fight against the Imperial heathen. Were Carpenter and his wife sufficiently demented for that? Presumably; if you’re religious you can believe anything. Well, then, if they wanted to supply Sharps carbines to the Taipings, why not ship ’em up the Yangtse to Nanking, where the Taipings were in force, instead of to Canton, where there wasn’t a Taiping within a hundred miles? Simple: Nanking was under siege, the Yangtse was a damned dangerous river, and they’d have had to run the stuff through Shanghai, where there’d have been a far greater risk of detection.

But, dammit, how could they hope to smuggle guns into Canton, where our garrison and gunboats were thick as fleas, and the chests would have to be opened at the factories? That was plainly impossible – so they didn’t intend the lorchas ever to reach Canton. No, if their skipper turned eastward into the web of tributaries and creeks short of the First Bar, to some predetermined rendezvous … a Taiping mule-train waiting on a deserted river-bank … off-load and away up-country … why, it could be done as safe as sleep. And poor old Flashy; whom they’d needed to keep meddling and acquisitive Chinese officials at bay during the run past the forts, and who had performed that service to admiration – why, he’d be no trouble. Could he, Her Majesty’s loyal servant, go running to Parkes at Canton to confess that he’d been instrumental in providing the Taipings with enough small arms to keep ’em going until doomsday? Not half.

And that little snake Ward must be up to the neck in it! Hadn’t he announced himself a Taiping-worshipper only yesterday? Wait, though – he’d also admitted that he would have hove to for the Imperial galley, which would have been fatal to him … By gum, had that been acting for my benefit? Yes, because later when I’d remarked that we might have to part with a chest or two as ‘squeeze’ to the Mandarins, he’d been taken suddenly aback, until he’d reflected that the lorchas would never get that close to Canton. The lying, dissimulating, Yankee snake …

That, I say, is how I would have reasoned, given the leisure – and I’d have been dead right, too. As it was, no leisure was afforded me; some of it went through my mind in a flash – the bit about Ward, for instance – but I hadn’t had time to slam the chest cover down when I felt the lorcha swing violently off course, her mainsail cracked like a cannon, there was a yelling and scampering of bare feet overhead, and I had flung the wench aside, dived into the cabin, grabbed my Adams from beneath my pillow, and was up the companion like a jack rabbit.

I emerged just in time to duck beneath the mainsail boom as it came swinging ponderously overhead with a couple of boatmen clinging on, yelling bloody murder as they tried to secure it. The others were at the rail, pigtails flapping and chattering like monkeys, staring forward. By God, the second lorcha was now ahead, and there was Ward at her helm; we were close in by the east bank – it must be the east, for there was the sun gleaming dully through the morning mist, the first rays turning the waters to gold around us. But we were running south! My lorcha was just completing her turn; I spun round in bewilderment. Two of the boatmen had the tiller jammed over as far as it would go – and a furlong behind us, its oars going like the Cambridge crew as it raced down towards us, was a dandy little launch rowed by fellows in white shirts and straw hats, with a little chap in the sternsheets egging them on. And half a mile beyond that, emerging from a creek on the east bank, was an undoubted Navy sloop. She was flying the Union Jack.

There are times, as I said, to run, and times to think – and by God I couldn’t do either! I know now that Ward, a stranger to the Pearl, and with only a clown of a boatman as pilot, had missed his turning in the dark, and run slap into one of our Canton patrollers, but in that moment I was aware only that the blue-jackets were upon us, and poor old Flash was sitting on top of the damnedest load of contraband you ever saw. I acted on blind instinct, thank heaven; the launch was closing in, and there was only one thing for it.

‘Ward, you toad!’ I bellowed. ‘Take that!’ And springing on to the rail to get a clear shot at him, I let blaze with the Adams. He sprang away from the tiller of the other lorcha, and I loosed off another shot which struck splinters from his rail; his boat yawed crazily, and in the crisis he behaved with admirable presence of mind: he was over her rail like a porpoise, taking the water clean and striking out like billy-o for the bank, not a hundred yards off. I jumped down, roaring, and was about to send another ball after him when one of my helmsmen whipped out his kampilan and came at me, screaming like a banshee. I shot him point-blank, and the force of it flung him back against the rail, clutching his guts and pouring blood. Before his fellows could move I had my back to the rail, flourishing the Adams, and bawling to them to stand off or I’d blow ’em to blazes. For an instant they hesitated, hands on hilts, the ugly yellow faces contorted with rage and fear; I banged a shot over their heads, and the whole half-dozen scampered across beside their wounded mate. Behind me I heard a young voice, shrill with excitement, yelling ‘In oars! Follow me!’, the launch was bumping against our side, and here was a young snotty, waving a cutlass as big as himself, and half a dozen tars at his heels, jumping on to our deck.

‘Come along, you fellows!’ cries I heartily. ‘You’re just in time! Careful, now … these are desperate villains!’ And I gave a final flourish of the Adams at the boatmen, who were crouched, half naked and looking as piratical as sin, beside their leaking comrade, before turning to greet the gaping midshipman.

‘Flashman, colonel, army intelligence,’ says I briskly, and held out my hand. He took it in bewilderment, goggling at me and at the boatmen. ‘Just have your lads watch out for those rascals, will you? They’re gun-runners, you know.’

‘My stars!’ says he, and then gave a little start. ‘Flashman, did you say – sir?’ He was a sturdy, snub-nosed young half-pint with a bulldog chin, and he was staring at me with disbelief. ‘Not … I mean – Colonel Flashman?’

Well, I don’t suppose there was a soul in England – not in the Services, leastways – who hadn’t heard of the gallant Flashy, and no doubt he was recognising me from the illustrations he’d seen in the press. I grinned at him.

‘That’s right, youngster. Here, you’d best put some of your fellows aboard that other lorcha – why, blast it, the brute’s getting clear away!’ And I pointed over the rail to the near shore, where the figure of Ward was floundering ashore in the shallows. Even as we watched he disappeared into the tall reeds, and I sighed with inward relief. That was the star witness safely out of the way. I damned him and turned away, laughing ruefully, and the snotty came out of his trance like a good ’un.

‘Jenkins, Smith – cover those fellows! Bland – take the launch to that other lorcha and make her safe!’ The other lorcha, I was pleased to see, was floundering about with her crew at sixes and sevens. As his tars jumped to it, the snotty turned back to me. ‘I don’t understand, sir. Gun-runners, did you say?’

‘As ever was, my son. What’s your name?’

‘Fisher, sir,’ says he. ‘Jack Fisher, midshipman.’

‘Come along, Jackie,’ says I, clapping him on the shoulder like the cheery soul I was – no side, you see. ‘And I’ll show you the wickedness of the world.’

I took him below, and he gaped at the sight of the Hong Kong girl, who was crouched shivering and bare-titted. But he gaped even wider when I showed him the contents of the ‘opium’ chests.

‘My stars!’ says he again. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Guns for the Taiping rebels, my boy,’ says I grimly. ‘You arrived just in time, you see. Another half-hour and I’d have had to tackle these scoundrels single-handed. Your captain got my message, I suppose?’

‘I dunno, sir,’ says he, owl-eyed. ‘We saw your lorchas, turning tail, and I was sent to investigate. We’d no notion …’

So Ward’s guilty conscience had been his undoing – if he’d held his course the Navy would never have looked at him, and if they had, why, he was just carrying opium, and had the famous Flashy to vouch for him. For he wasn’t to know I’d sniffed out his real cargo. Gad, though, if that slut hadn’t begged for a pipe of chandoo, I’d have been in a pretty fix, with Ward panicking, the Navy’s suspicions aroused, and myself flat-footed when they came aboard and started rummaging. Thanks to her, I’d had those few minutes to plot my course.

‘Mr Fisher,’ says I, ‘I think it’s time I had a word with your skipper, what? Perhaps you’d be good enough to take me aboard?’

You see, of course, what I was about. It was the ploy I’d used on the slave-ship Balliol College in ’48, when the Yankee Navy caught us off Cape San Antonio, and to save my skin I’d welcomed our captors with open arms and let on that I’d only been with the slavers to spy on them.^fn1 Then, I’d had Admiralty papers to prove my false identity, but here I had something infinitely better – my fame and reputation. For who, boarding a gun-runner and finding valiant old Flashy holding the miscreants at bay single-handed, would suspect that he was one of the gang? Heroes who have led the Light Brigade and braved the heathen hordes at Cawnpore and Kabul, are above suspicion; Master Fisher might well be fogged as to what I was doing there, exactly, but it never crossed his innocent young mind that I was anything but what I’d announced myself – an army officer apprehending villainous foreign smugglers. And since I was from intelligence, no doubt there was some splendid mystery behind it, and explanations would follow. Quite.

Nor did the prospect of explaining trouble me – much. After all, I was Flashy, and it was well-known officially that I’d been up to my ears in secret affairs in India and Central Asia, and here, they would think, was more of the same. Once I’d determined what tale to tell, it was simply a matter of carrying it off with modest assurance (trust me for that) and a pinch of mystery to make ’em feel confidential and cosy, and they’d swallow whatever I told ’em, nem. con. There wouldn’t be a soul to give me the lie, and some of it would be true, anyway. (I’m proud to say it never occurred to me to tell the real truth, with Mrs Carpenter, etc. They’d never have swallowed that – which is ironic. Anyway, it would have made me look an imbecile.)

So when I was aboard the sloop, and its young commander had listened to little Fisher’s report and my own terse embellishments, and whistled softly at the sight of the lorchas’ cargo, I was perfectly prepared for the inevitable question, asked with respectful bewilderment:

‘But … how came you to be aboard of them, sir?’

I looked him in the eye with just a touch of tight-lipped smile. ‘I think, commander,’ says I, ‘that I’d best report direct to Mr Parkes at Canton. Least said, what? You received no message from him about …?’ and I nodded at the lorchas. ‘Just so. Perhaps he was right. Well, I’ll be obliged if you’ll carry me to him as soon as may be. In the meantime,’ I permitted myself a wry grin, ‘take good care of these Chinese villains, won’t you? I’ve been after ’em too long to want to lose ’em now. Oh, and by the way – that boy Fisher shapes well.’⁴

He couldn’t get me to Canton fast enough; we were in the Whampoa Channel by noon, and two hours later dropped anchor off Jackass Point, opposite the old factories. Then there was a delay while the lorchas and their crews were taken in charge, and the commander went to make his report to his chief, and to Parkes – I didn’t mind, since it gave me time to polish the tale I was going to tell – and it wasn’t until the following morning that I was escorted through the English Garden to the office and residence of Harry Parkes, Esq., H.M. Commissioner at Canton and (bar Bruce at Shanghai) our chief man in China. From all I’d heard, he was formidable: he knew the country better than any foreigner living, they said, for though he wasn’t thirty he’d been out since childhood, served through the Opium Wars, been on cutting-out expeditions as a schoolboy, done all manner of secret work and diplomatic ruffianing since, and carried things with a high hand against the Chinese – whose language he spoke rather better than the Emperor.

He greeted (I won’t say welcomed) me with brisk formality, stiff and upright behind his official desk, not a hair out of place on the sleek dark head. Energy was in every line of him, from the sharp prominent nose to the firm capable hands setting his papers just so; he was all business at once, in a clear, hard voice – and suddenly, convincing him didn’t seem quite so easy.

‘This is a singular business, Sir Harry! What’s behind it?’

‘Not much,’ says I, hoping I was right. Clever and easy, I don’t mind – I’m that way myself – but clever and brusque unsettles me. I handed him the ‘requested and required’ note Palmerston had given me when I went to India – the usual secret passport, but pretty faded now. ‘You had no message from me?’

‘I did not know you were in China, until yesterday.’ He glanced up sharply from the passport. ‘This is more than three years old.’

‘When I left England. What I’ve been doing since will have to stay under the rose, I’m afraid—’

He gave a little barking laugh. ‘Not altogether, I fancy,’ says he, with what he probably imagined was a smile. ‘Your knighthood and Victoria Cross are hardly state secrets.’

‘I meant since then – this past year. It has nothing to do with this affair, anyway – that’s a tale that’s soon told.’ I breathed an inward prayer, meeting the steady grey eyes in that lean lawyer face. ‘I’m due home on the Princess Charlotte, sailing on the eleventh—’

‘In three days? Grant is due on the thirteenth. I beg your pardon, pray continue.’

‘Aye, well, two nights ago I was over in Macao, looking up an old chum from Borneo, when I was with Brooke.’ No harm in dropping in that glorious acquaintance, I thought. ‘I needn’t mention his name, it’s of no importance, but he’s a downy bird, Chinese, with an eye in every bush – an old White Lily Society man, you know the sort …’

‘His name might be valuable,’ says Parkes, and his hand went ever so casually to a vase of flowers on his desk; he lifted it with three fingers round the stem, and set it down again. Clever bastard.

‘Exactly,’ says I, and ran my thumb over three fingertips,⁵ just to show him. ‘Well, we talked shop, and by way of gossip he let fall that a shipment of arms was going upriver to the Taipings – Shih-ta-kai’s people, he thought. Which was nothing to me – until he mentioned that they were British bought-and-paid-for, though he didn’t know who. Not strictly my indaba, you may say, but it struck me that if it got about that British arms were going to the Long-Haired Devils, it might cause us some embarrassment with Pekin, you know?’

I looked for a nod, but he just sat there with his fingers laced on the blotter before him. I’d a feeling that if you’d fired a gun in his ear he wouldn’t have taken his eyes from mine.

‘So I thought I should have a look. Nothing official to be done on Portuguese territory, of course, but my friend knew where the lorchas were preparing to weigh – and there they were, sure enough, ostensibly loaded with opium, if you please. On the spur of the moment I approached the skipper—’

‘That would be Ward.’

It was like a kick in the throat. I couldn’t help staring, and had to improvise swiftly to explain my obvious astonishment.

‘Ward, you say? He told me his name was Foster.’ The sweat was cold on my spine. ‘You knew … about him, and the shipment?’

‘Only his name. My agents in Hong Kong and Macao send notice of all opium shipments, vessels, owners, and skippers.’ He lifted a list from his desk. ‘Lorchas Ruth and Naomi, owned by Yang Fang and Co., Shanghai, commander F. T. Ward. No suggestion, of course, that he carried anything but opium.’ He laid it down, and waited.

‘Well, on impulse, I asked him for a lift to Canton.’ By gum, he’d shaken me for a second, but if that was the extent of his knowledge I was still safe – but was it? This was a foxy one – and on instinct I did the riskiest thing a liar can do: I decided to change my story. I’d been about to tell him I’d stowed away, full of duty and holy zeal, and come thundering out at the critical moment, to prevent the rascals escaping when our sloop hove in sight. Suddenly I knew it wouldn’t do – not with this cold clam. I’ve been lying all my life, and I know: when in doubt, get as close to the truth as you can, and hang on like grim death.

‘I asked him for a lift to Canton – and if you ask what was in my mind, I can’t tell you. I knew it was my duty to stop those guns – and placed as I was, without authority in a foreign port, that meant staying with ’em, somehow, and taking whatever chance offered.’

‘You might,’ he interrupted, ‘have informed the Portuguese.’

‘I might, but I didn’t – and I doubt if you would, either.’ I gave him just a touch of the Colonel, there. ‘Anyway, he refused me, mighty curt. I offered passage money, but he wouldn’t budge – which settled it for me, for any honest trader would have agreed. I was going off, wondering what to do next, when he suddenly called me back, and asked did I know the river, and did I speak Chinese? I said I did, he chewed it over, and then offered to take me if I’d act as interpreter on the voyage. I had only a moment aside to tell my Chinese friend to get word to you, or Hong Kong, of what was forward. But you’ve had no word from him?’

‘None, Sir Harry,’ and not a flicker of expression – I could have brained the man. There’s nothing more discouraging than lying to a poker face, when what you need is gasps and whistles and cries of ‘I’ll be damned!’ and ‘What happened then?’ to whet your prevarications.

‘Aye, well, I can’t say I’m surprised. He’ll talk to a pal, but he’s leery of official circles, blast him. Well, we sailed, and what I needed, of course, was a squint at the cargo. But they never left me alone for a moment. Foster –’ I changed the name just in time ‘– and the Chinks were always on hand, so I must bide my time. I stayed awake the first night, but no chance offered; the second night, I’m afraid, I just caulked out.’ A shrug, and rueful Flashy smile, followed by an eager glint in the eye. ‘But then I had a splendid stroke of luck. Just before dawn, a native girl of the crew – a cook or some such thing, I suppose – woke me, begging for a pipe of opium! Would you believe it? There was no one about – and here was a heaven-sent chance to open a chest, with a ready explanation if I were detected. So I did – and there were the Sharps!’

God, it sounded lame – especially the true parts, which I thought was damned hard. I waited; if the man were human, he must say something. He did.

‘You must have formed some plan by this time – what did you hope to do, alone, against so many?’ He sounded impatient – and downright curious.

‘For the life of me, Mr Parkes, I wasn’t sure.’ I grinned him straight in the eye, bluff, honest Harry. ‘Tackle the crew with my revolver? Try to scuttle her? I don’t know, sir. By the grace of God the sloop hove in sight just then … and I did tackle ’em! And the rest you know.’

He sat for a moment, and I braced myself for the incredulous questions, the outright disbelief – and then he gave his sudden bark of a laugh, and struck the bell at his elbow.

‘Some coffee, Sir Harry? I’m sure you deserve it. That, sir,’ says he, shaking his head, ‘is the most damned unlikely tale I ever heard – and what I’d say to it if I didn’t know it for true, I cannot imagine! Well, it is unlikely, you’ll own?’ He chuckled again, and it seemed to me an indignant frown was in order, so I gave one, but it was wasted since he was talking to the bearer with the coffee-tray. Relief and bewilderment filled me; he’d swallowed it … he knew it was true …? What the deuce …?

‘Speaking in my official capacity, I have to say that your actions were entirely irregular,’ says he, handing me a cup, ‘and might have had serious results – for yourself. You risked your life, you know – and your honour.’ He looked hard at me. ‘A senior officer, found aboard an arms-smuggler, without authority? Even with your distinguished name … well …’ He stirred his own cup, and then smiled – and, d’ye know, I realised he was just twenty-nine, and not the fifty-odd he’d sounded. ‘Between ourselves, it was a damned cool bit of work, and I’m obliged to you. But for you, they might have given us the slip; they’d certainly have made some sort of fight of it. My congratulations, sir. I beg your pardon – more sugar?’

Well, this was Sunday in Brighton all of a sudden, wasn’t it, though? I’d hoped for acceptance, with or without the doubtful glances that have followed me round the world for eighty erratic years – but hardly for this. It didn’t make sense, even – for it was a damned unlikely tale, as he’d said.

‘Saving my poor veracity,’ says I, ‘you say you know it’s true?’ Flashy ain’t just bluff and manly, you see – he’s sharp, too, and I was playing my character. ‘May I know how?’

‘I’d not deny myself the pleasure of enlightening you,’ says he briskly. ‘We have known for some time that arms shipments, provided by a syndicate of British and American sympathisers, have been going up the Pearl to the Taipings – Shih-ta-kai, as your Chinese friend said. Who these sympathisers are, we don’t know –’ that was good news, too, ‘since the work was entirely overseen by a most skilful Chinese, a former pirate, who brought the arms to Macao, shipped them up the Pearl in lorchas, and passed them to the Taipings … where? To be brief, we smoked the pirate out a week ago, and he met with an accident.’ He set down his cup. ‘That forced the syndicate’s hand – they needed a new man, and they chose Ward, heaven knows why, since he knew nothing of the Pearl, or of China. But he’s a good seaman, they say, and from what we know, devoted to the Taiping cause. The idiot. And at the last moment, when he must have been wondering how the deuce he was going to find his way upriver, without a word of Chinese in his head, and rendezvous with the Taipings, you dropped into his lap. We may guess,’ says he, ‘what your fate must have been if he had reached his destination. But I’m sure you weighed that.’

I gave an offhand shrug, and when we’d picked the shattered remnants of my cup from the floor, he pinged his bell again. ‘Fortunately, we now had Mr Ward and his convoy under observation at Macao, and our sloops were waiting for him beyond the Second Bar. Come in!’ cries he, and the door opened to admit the prettiest little Chinese girl, in a flowered robe and high block shoes; a Manchoo, by her coiled hair and unbound feet. She smiled and bobbed to Parkes, and glanced sidelong in my direction.

‘An-yat-heh!’ snaps Parkes, and she turned and bobbed at me. I could only nod back, mystified – and then my heart lurched. She was washed and dressed and painted up like a Mandarin’s daughter, but there was no mistaking. She was the Hong Kong boat girl.

‘Thank you, An-yat-heh!’ says Parkes, and she bobbed again, shot me another slantendicular look, and pitti-pittied out.

‘An-yat-heh,’ says Parkes drily, ‘is a most capable and, I fear, most immoral young woman. She is also the best spy on the Pearl River. For the past week she has been keeping close watch on Frederick Townsend Ward. She saw his lorchas sail from Macao, and followed in a sampan manned by other of our agents. She would have contrived to get aboard the lorchas,’ he went on impassively, ‘even if you had not been there, for it was her task to see where the cargo was landed, in the event that Ward had eluded our patrols. She was surprised to learn, from eavesdropping on the crew, that you were apparently unaware of the true nature of the cargo – for of course the smugglers were not to know that you already had their secret, and spoke of you as a dupe, to be disposed of when you had served your purpose. She was pleased, she tells me, to discover that you were not one of the smugglers; in some ways she is a naive, affectionate girl, and seems to have formed an attachment to you.’

Whether this was accompanied by a leer, a frown, or nothing at all, I can’t say – knowing Parkes, probably the last. I was in too much mental turmoil to notice – by God, the luck! For it fitted – my tale to Parkes corroborated exactly what she must have told him of the voyage. But if I’d given him the stowaway yarn … it didn’t bear thinking about. I put it by, and listened to the brisk, impersonal voice.

‘She is, as I said, a resourceful young woman. When the sloop was sighted, she determined to draw your attention to the cargo, in the hope that when you saw how you had been deceived, you might cause some disturbance, and hinder their escape – as indeed you did. Having no English but pigeon, and doubting her ability to make you understand Cantonese, she hit on the novel plan of persuading you to open a chest by pleading with you for opium.’

I sat quiet for a moment – and if you want to know what I was thinking, it wasn’t what an almighty narrow shave I’d had, or of prayers of thanksgiving, or anything of that sort. No, I was asking myself when, if ever, I’d been so confoundedly fooled by two different women in the space of four days. Mrs Phoebe Carpenter and An-yat-heh, bless ’em. White or yellow, they were a hazardous breed in China, that was plain. Parkes, with the satisfied air of a rooster who has done crowing, was regarding me expectantly.

‘Well, she’s a brave girl,’ says I. ‘Smart, too. And you, sir, are to be congratulated on the efficiency of your secret service.’

‘Oh, we get about,’ says he.

‘I’m sorry that rascal Foster – Ward, did you say? – got clear away.’ I scowled, Flashy-like. ‘I’ve a score to settle with that one.’

‘Not in China, Sir Harry, if you please.’ He was all commissioner again. ‘He served you a scurvy trick, no doubt, but the less that is heard of this business the better. I shall require your word on that,’ and he gave me his stiff-collar look. ‘It has all been quite unofficial, you see. No British law has been broken. The gun-running offence took place within the Imperial Chinese Government’s jurisdiction; we had no legal right to detain or hinder Ward and his fellows. But,’ he gave another of his sour smiles, ‘we do have the gunboats. And since Her Majesty’s Government is strictly neutral as between the Imperials and the Taipings, it is certainly not in our interest that British citizens should be arming the rebels. A thought which prompted your own action, you remember. No.’ He squared off his pencils in columns of threes. ‘We must consider the incident happily – and in your case fortunately – concluded.’

That, of course, was the main thing. I was clear, by the grace of God and dear little An-yat-heh. There would be no inconvenient inquiries which might have led back to the conniving Mrs Carpenter – who, it occurred to me, might well be blackmailed to bed before I sailed for home. As for Ward, I’d not have gone near the dangerous brute; I gave Parkes my word with feigned reluctance.

‘He may not be such a rascal, you know.’ Parkes frowned, as though it irritated him to admit it. ‘He has courage, and his devotion to the rebel cause, if misguided, may well be sincere. There are times when I would be glad to be rid of the Manchoos myself. But that is not our concern.’ He sniffed. ‘For the moment.’

Not my concern at any time, old lad, thinks I. Now that I was apparently out from under, I was in a fret to get away from this omniscient satrap while the going was good. So I shuffled, and began to thank him, bluff and manly, and hope that I hadn’t been too great a nuisance, eh, to him and his gang of busybodies – when he stopped me with a knowing look, and pulled a Portent of Doom (a blue diplomatic packet, to you) from his desk.

‘There is another matter, Sir Harry – one which I fancy you will consider an amend for your recent adventure.’ Eyeing that packet, I suddenly doubted it. ‘You recall that I said I was unaware of your presence in China, until yesterday? Listen, if you please.’ He took a sheet from the packet. ‘Yes, here we are … “it is thought that Colonel Flashman may be en route through China. In that event, you are to require him to proceed forthwith to Shanghai, and there place himself at the disposal of H.M. Minister and Superintendent of Trade.”’

I’d known that packet was damned bad news as soon as I saw it. What the hell did they want me for – and on the eve of my sailing for Home, too? Whatever it was, by God, they weren’t coming between me and my well-earned idleness! I’d send in my papers first, I’d … Parkes was speaking, with that sharp, smug smile on his infernal face.

‘I was at a loss to know how to comply, when the sloop brought you here so unexpectedly opportune. Indeed, we should thank Mr Ward – for had you remained in Hong Kong it is odds that you would have sailed for England before I had time to inquire for you there. Our Chinese despatches can be infernally slow …’

In other words, if that bitch Carpenter hadn’t hocussed me up the Pearl with her lies, I’d have been safe and away. And now the Army had me again. Well, we’d see about that – but for the moment I must choke back my fury until I knew what was what.

‘How extraordinary!’ says I. ‘Well, what a fortunate chance! What can it mean?’

‘Why, they want you for the Pekin business to be sure!’ cries the bloody know-all. ‘The despatch is confidential, of course, but I think I may be forgiven if I tell you that Lord Elgin – whose Embassy to China will be made public shortly – has asked that you be attached to the intelligence staff. I think, too,’ and he was positively jocular, rot his boots, ‘that we may see the hand of Lord Palmerston here. My dear Sir Harry, allow me to congratulate you.’