Flashman and the Dragon. George Fraser MacDonald

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