The Road to Samarcand. Patrick O’Brian

whole. Very learned pursuit.’

      ‘That’s what my cousin does. He’s a professor of it.’

      ‘Your cousin a professor?’ asked Li Han, in an unbelieving tone.

      ‘Yes, of course he is. Haven’t you heard them talking about Professor Ayrton?’

      ‘Is the same honourable person?’ Li Han dropped his scissors. ‘Excuse please. Would never have cut ear …’

      He was obviously deeply impressed, and he at once opened a can of lichees for Derrick. ‘Such face,’ he murmured. ‘Such estimable learning. Such dignity.’

      ‘How would you make a good impression on an archaeologist?’ asked Derrick, after thinking for some time.

      ‘Display intelligent interest, and ask acute ancient questions.’

      ‘Could you give me an acute question to ask him, Li Han? Just one or two really swell questions that will show him that I’ve already had enough education.’

      ‘Not knowing, cannot say. Regret lamentable ignorance.’

      ‘Now you’re really useful, aren’t you, Li Han?’ said Derrick, bitterly. ‘You mean to say you don’t know a thing about archaeology, and you a sea-cook? Some of your hashes have been pretty ancient fragments, all right. You ought to know the subject backwards.’

      ‘If I had inestimable privilege of serving worthy learned gentleman,’ said Li Han, with a sigh, ‘or even of beholding erudite face, it would be different. But, alas, sea-cook confined to maritime tossing existence is condemned to dog-like ignorance.’

      ‘Olaf,’ said Derrick, going for’ard to where the Swede was sitting on the well-deck, tying a beautiful turk’s-head at the end of a short length of rope, ‘Olaf, if you wanted to impress an archaeologist, how would you set about it? I want some right good advice, now.’

      The big Swede scratched his head and closed his eyes with the effort of thinking. ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘Impress, eh? An archaeologist, huh? Well, Ay reckon Ay would strike him just behind the shoulder with a twenty-four pound harpoon. Strike hard and fast, not too far back, see? My old man, he chanced on one of them things north-east of Spitzbergen in the fall of, lemme t’ink, 1897 was it, or 1898? Yes, Ay reckon it was 1898. It chawed up his long-boat something horrible, but they got fifty-three barrels of oil out of it.’

      ‘Olaf, you’re wrong. An archaeologist is a person who digs for ancient things.’

      ‘No. Ay ain’t mistaken, son. It’s a fish, it is, rather smaller nor a fin-whale, but mighty dangerous, and you don’t want to strike it too far back.’

      ‘Well, I’ve got to make a good impression on one, anyway.’

      ‘Hum. You watch your step, then. This one Ay talk about, he chawed up a long-boat, like I told you. Chawed it up,’ he repeated, gnashing his jaws, ‘just like that.’

      ‘What’s that rope’s-end for, Olaf?’ asked Derrick, changing the subject.

      ‘That’s for you, son,’ said Olaf, with a happy smile. ‘The Old Man, he told me to pick out a nice whippy piece. “Put a right good knot in it, Olaf,” he says. “I’ll learn the young – to talk proper,” he says.’

      ‘Is that what Uncle Terry said, Olaf?’ asked Derrick, turning pale.

      ‘His very words. “I’ll larrup him,” he says. “I’ll learn him to talk barbarious,” he says. “And when I’m tired, you can take over, Olaf,” he says. He’s going to lay into you like blue murder every time you say gee or okay,’ said Olaf, heartlessly tightening the knot.

      ‘Why, gee, Olaf, what am I to say?’ cried Derrick, appalled.

      ‘Well, you can say dearie me, or land’s sake – no, not land’s sake; that’s low. But you could say cor stone the crows. That’s English. I shipped along with a whole crew of Limeys once, and they all said cor stone the crows. There was this German submarine, see? Surfaced off Ushant and shelled us. “Cor stone the crows,” said the Limeys, particularly the Old Man, who was hit by a splinter on the nose. Then Ay rammed the – and the Limeys all stood along the side and said, “Cor stone the crows, Olaf’s rammed the –.”’

      ‘I never knew you had rammed a submarine, Olaf.’

      ‘Oh, it was just luck that time,’ said Olaf, modestly. ‘The other ones was more difficult.’

      ‘You must have been quite a hero in the war, Olaf. Did they give you any medals?’

      ‘Oh, no. They wanted to make me an earl or a duke or something, but Ay never was one for falals or doodads, see?’

      ‘Cor stone the crows,’ said Derrick.

      The Wanderer flew on, and the next day at noon she raised the high cape of Tchao-King, by the evening she had threaded her way through the junks and the sampans to the inner harbour, and she was tied up at the wharf of the Benign Wind-Dragon, by the European godowns.

      Derrick was standing in the saloon in a high state of preparedness, brushed, gleaming and nervous. His uncle gave him a final inspection, and said, ‘It’s a pity you look as if you had the mange, but otherwise your rig is trim enough. Have you tied up that monstrous beast?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ answered Derrick, who could hear Chang’s desperate scratching at the closed hatch: he noticed that his uncle had dressed with more than usual care, and that Ross, huge and splendid in his best shore-going ducks, was nervous too.

      ‘I feel just like a nursemaid who’s got to display her charge to a crew of critical relations,’ said Sullivan, fingering Derrick’s tie. ‘You won’t behave like a roughneck shell-back, will you? Or go roaring about as if we were in a gale of wind? Or hurl the soup down your shirt?’

      ‘Perhaps it would be better if Derrick were not to keep his mouth ajar,’ suggested Ross. ‘He might look brighter with it closed. More intelligent.’

      ‘Yes, it looks better closed,’ said Sullivan, looking anxiously at his nephew. ‘Now the great thing to remember is not to be nervous, Derrick,’ he added, leading the way on deck.

      The three rickshaws threaded their way through the bullock-carts, wheelbarrows and ancient lorries that crowded the streets of Tchao-King: they went slowly, for it was a market-day as well as the feast of Pong Hsiu, but they went too fast for Derrick, and when he arrived at the steps of the Kylin Hotel he felt that he would rather go for a swim with a tiger-shark than face the remainder of the evening.

      Yet a few hours later, when their dinner was done and they were all sitting in long cane chairs on the verandah, he was talking away to Professor Ayrton as if he had known him all his life. His cousin turned out to be a tall, thin, frail-looking man, far older than Sullivan and Ross, with a face the colour of yellowed parchment and a somewhat Chinese cast of countenance that was accentuated by the large, horn-rimmed spectacles that he wore. If he had been dressed in a robe rather than a very old tweed jacket and a pair of disreputable flannel trousers he might have passed for a north-Chinese scholar. He had a thoroughly benign face that entirely matched his kind way of speaking: he was as unlike a tiger-shark as could be imagined, and he completely won Derrick’s friendship by welcoming Chang, who appeared ten minutes after their arrival, still dripping wet and trailing his broken leash. Chang did not behave as well as Derrick could have wished: the porter tried to keep him out, but was utterly routed; as Chang blundered at full speed down the long verandah he bowled over one waiter and two low tables, and when he reached them it was instantly apparent that he had been swimming in the horribly malodorous waters of the harbour.

      ‘Never mind, never mind,’ cried Professor Ayrton, as Derrick tried to induce Chang to go quietly away. ‘Let him stay. I should like him to stay very much. He looks a most interesting creature.’ He put out his long, thin hand to pat Chang’s head, and with a thrill of horror Derrick thought that Chang would have it off: hitherto no one had touched Chang without bloodshed, except Derrick.