Flashman and the Dragon. George Fraser MacDonald

such people govern? They’re led by a visionary, and their chief men are pawnbrokers, clerks, and blacksmiths! Talk about Jack Cade and Wat Tyler! Lee’s the best of ’em, and Hung Jen-kan’s civilised, by all accounts – but the rest are bloody-minded savages who rule their conquered provinces by terror and enslavement. Which is no way to win a war, I’d say. They’d be entirely unpredictable, with their lunatic king liable to have a divine revelation telling him to pitch out all foreign devils, or declare war on Japan!’

      ‘But suppose,’ I ventured, ‘the Taipings win, in the end?’

      ‘You mean,’ says Bruce, looking more cherubic than ever, ‘suppose they look likely to win. Well, H.M.G. would no doubt wish to review the position. But while it’s all to play for, we remain entirely neutral, respecting the Celestial Emperor as the established government of China.’

      I saw that, but wondered if, in view of the possible Taiping threat to Shanghai, it mightn’t be politic to jolly along this General Lee with fair words – lie to him, like.

      ‘No. The Powers agree that all such overtures as Lee’s letter must be ignored. If I acknowledged it, and word reached Pekin, heaven knows what might happen to our forthcoming negotiations with the Imperial Government. They might assume we were treating with the rebels, and Grant might even have a real war on his hands. We may have to talk to the Taipings sometime – unofficially,’ says he, thoughtfully, ‘but it will be at a time and place of our choosing, not theirs.’

      All of which was of passing interest to me; what mattered was that Elgin wasn’t due out until June, and as his personal intelligence aide I could kick my heels pleasantly until then, sampling the delights of Shanghai diplomatic society and the more robust amusements to be found in the better class native sing-songs and haunts of ill-repute. Which I did – and all the time China was stropping its dragon claws and eyeing me hungrily.

      Pleasuring apart, the time hung heavy enough for me to do some light work with the politicals of the consulate, for we maintained an extensive intelligence-gathering bandobast, and it behoved me to know about it. It consisted mostly of strange little coolies coming to the back door at night with bits of bazaar gossip, or itinerant bagmen with news from upriver, the occasional missionary’s helper who’d been through the lines at Nanking, and endless numbers of young Chinese, who might have been students or clerks or pimps – all reporting briefly or at length to swell the files of the intelligence department. It was the most trivial, wearisome rubbish for the most part – there wasn’t, alas, an An-yat-heh among the spies to cheer things up – and devilish dull for the collators, who passed it on for sifting and summary by the two Chinese supervisors whose names, I swear to God, were Mr Fat and Mr Lin. By the time they’d pieced and deduced and remembered – well, it’s surprising what can emerge from even the most mundane scraps of information.

      For example, it was the strangest thing that enabled us to foresee the end of the great siege of Nanking in April ’60. The Imperialists had huge entrenchments circling the city, and the river blockaded on both sides, but couldn’t breach the rebel defences. The Taipings, hemmed within the city, had various forces loose in the countryside, but nothing apparently strong enough to raise the siege. It was such a stalemate that a great fair had actually been established between the Imp lines and the city walls, where both sides used to meet and fraternise, and the Imps sold all manner of goods to the Taipings! They brought food, opium, women, even arms and powder, which the Taipings bought with the silver they’d found in Nanking when they captured it back in ’53.

      A ludicrous state of affairs, even for China; it took my fancy, and when one of our spies sent down particulars of the market trading, I happened to glance through it – and noted an item which seemed a trifle odd. I ain’t given to browsing over such things, you may be sure, and I wish to heaven I’d never seen this one, for what I noticed proved to be a vital clue, and set Bruce thinking earlier than he need have done, with the most ghastly consequences to myself.

      ‘Here’s a rum thing, Mr Fat,’ says I. ‘Why should the Taipings be buying bolts of black silk? Dammit, they spent 500 taels^fn1 on it this week – more than they spent on cartridge. Are they expecting funerals?’

      ‘Most singular,’ says he. ‘Mr Lin, have the goodness to examine the return for last week.’

      So they did – and the Taipings had bought even more black silk then. They clucked over it, and burrowed into their records, and came to an astonishing conclusion.

      Whenever the Taipings undertook any desperate military action, they invariably raised black silk flags in every company, which their soldiers were bound to follow on pain of death – they even had executioners posted in the ranks to behead any shirkers, which must have done wonders for their recruiting, I’d have thought. And when we learned presently that the black silk had been sent out of the city to two of the Taiping armies in the field – the Golden Lions of the famous Loyal Prince Lee, and the Celestial Singers under Chen Yu-cheng – it was fairly obvious that Lee and Chen were about to fall on the Imp besiegers. Which, in due course, they did, and our knowing about it in advance enabled the Hon. F. W. A. Bruce to plan and scheme most infernally, as I said. (If you wonder that the Imps didn’t realise the significance of the black silk they were selling the Taipings – why, that’s the Imperial Chinese Army for you. Even if they had, they’d likely just have yawned, or deserted.)

      I was fool enough to be mildly pleased at spotting the item – Fat and Lin regarded me with awe for days – but I wasn’t much interested, having discovered far more important matter in the secret files, which enabled me to bring off a splendid coup, thus:

      It appeared that Countess H—, wife of a senior attaché at the Russian mission, paid weekly visits to a Chinese hairdresser, and, under the pretext of being beautified, regularly entertained four(!) stalwart Manchoo Bannermen in a room above the shop, later driving home with a new coiffure and a smug expression.

      [Official conclusion by Fat and Lin: the subject is vulnerable, and may be coerced if access should be required to her husband’s papers. Action: none.]

      [Unofficial conclusion by Flashy: the subject is a slim, vicious-looking piece who smokes brown cigarettes and drinks like a fish at diplomatic bunfights, but has hitherto been invulnerable by reason of her chilly disdain. Action: advise subject by anonymous note that if she doesn’t change her hairdresser, her husband will learn something to her disadvantage. Supply her with address of alternative establishment, and arrange to drop in during her appointments.]

      So you see, you can’t overestimate the importance of good intelligence work. Fascinating woman; d’you know, she smoked those damned brown cigarettes all the time, even when … And kept a tumbler of vodka on the bedside table. But I digress. Bruce was preparing his bombshell, and it was on my return from an exhausting afternoon at the hairdresser’s that he informed me, out of the blue, that he was sending me to Nanking.

      There was a time when the notion of intruding on the mutual slaughter of millions of Chinese would have had me squawking like an agitated hen, but I knew better now. I nodded judiciously, while my face went crimson (which it does out of sheer funk, often mistaken for rage and resolution) and my liver turned its accustomed white. Aloud I wondered, frowning, if I were the best man to send … a clever Chinese might do it better … one didn’t know how long it would take … have to be on hand when Elgin arrived … might our policy not be compromised if a senior British officer were seen near rebel headquarters … strict neutrality … of course, Bruce knew best …

      ‘It can’t be helped,’ says he briskly. ‘It would be folly not to employ your special talents in this emergency. The battle is fully joined before Nanking, and there’s no doubt the Taipings will crush the Imps utterly in the Yangtse valley, which will alter the whole balance in China; at a stroke the rebels become masters of everything between Kwangsi and the Yellow Sea.’ He swept his hand across the southern half of China on his wall map.

      ‘I said some weeks ago that a time might come when we must talk to the Taipings,’ says he, and for once the cherub face was set and heavy. ‘Well, it is now. After this battle, Lee’s hands will be free, and it’s my belief that he will march