Temple Street near the docks was the meeting place of the gainfully employed and the desperately unemployed. Hundreds of miners who had fled from the troubles in Bandong Valley, Larut and elsewhere, had converged on the area. The back lanes and side lanes were choked with idle men. They squatted beside the open drains, shoved their way along the five-foot paths, overflowed onto the roads and blocked the progress of pushcarts, rickshaws, buggies, gharries and bullock carts inching their way through the heart of the trading district. All were hoping to earn a few cents to buy the day’s bowl of rice. But jobs were scarce.
Traders and merchants were jittery about their investments in the turbulent Malay states. The town was full of rumours. To the few policemen patrolling the area, mainly Sikhs and Amboynese employed in the colonial police department, the babble of Chinese tongues was incomprehensible. They walked through the throng, unseeing and unhearing. They did not see the knots of coolies swelling. Neither did they hear talk of murder and slaughter nor rumours of impending war between the Hakka and Cantonese miners.
“Tai-kor Wong was killed in bed! His head chopped off and flung out the window!”
“The gods have eyes!”
“Let the White Cranes taste our sword of vengeance!”
“Kill those sons of pigs! How many of our brothers have they killed, eh? How many, I ask you?”
As the morning wore on, the talk grew more virulent and strident. Tales of past battles were recalled and relived. Venom and rage spread among the coolies, smiting the knots of men huddled in the shadows. The sun rose higher in the cloudless sky and soon not many patches of shade were left. More coolies squeezed into the covered walkways of the shops. Tempers ran short. A word here, a word there; a few words overheard and repeated; an imagined insult, a stare, a push and a jab in the ribs, and before anyone knew it, something had ignited the tinderbox. A scuffle broke out just as Baba Wee’s gharry swung into view.
A young coolie was pushed into its path. The two horses neighed and reared up. The Indian driver was nearly knocked off his seat.
“Whoa! Whoa!”
“Look out!” Other gharry drivers fought to control their horses too. Shouts and curses rang out on all sides.
Baba Wee’s Indian driver swore at the startled coolie and raised his horsewhip in a threatening gesture. Men started running towards the gharry. The horses grew jumpy and tremulous. They pawed the ground nervously as the coolies swarmed round them.
“Back off! Back off!” The Indian driver raised his whip again.
Several coolies yelled at him and threatened to beat him up for insulting their friend. They advanced with poles in their hands. More coolies joined them, swelling the crowd. The gharry was hemmed in on all sides. The mob jostled and pushed, rocking the vehicle from side to side.
Inside the covered gharry, Baba Wee froze in his seat. He couldn’t understand the Hakka words spoken but he knew that the coolies were Black Flags.
“Get us out of here!”
“Can’t!” Tai-kor Wong hissed. “The dogs have surrounded us!”
The two men conferred rapidly in Hokkien. “Run!” Tai-kor Wong shouted to the Indian driver as he pulled Baba Wee out of the gharry and pushed his way through the crowd.
“Hoi! That’s the White Crane head! Catch the bastard!”
A thunderous roar rose from the mob. They set upon the two men. Passers-by fled. Stalls were overturned and some rickshaws were smashed. Fifty White Crane warriors emerged from their headquarters down the road. Armed with bamboo poles, they fended off the mob’s attack on their leaders.
Tuck Heng, his arm still in a bandage, plunged into the fray. He swung his bamboo pole and knocked the teeth out of two Hakka coolies blocking his way. He grabbed hold of Baba Wee just as a group of pole wielders surrounded the frightened old man. Tuck Heng lunged at them and cracked several heads. Then he pulled Baba Wee after him and sprinted towards the White Crane building. Several blows, aimed at Baba Wee, landed on Tuck Heng’s shoulders. But he managed to pull Baba Wee up the steps and hustled him into the safety of the clan’s hall just as shouts of “Police! Police!” sent the attacking mob scattering down the street.
Within minutes, the crowd had melted. Temple Street and all its side lanes and back lanes were emptied of people. A force of thirty uniformed policemen, many of whom were burly turbaned Sikhs, marched down the road, armed with rotans, canes and rattan shields. No one knew whether it was the sight of the white man leading the group or the Sikhs which had miraculously dispersed the mob of several hundred.
Baba Wee, pale from the shock of his experience, emerged from the White Crane building accompanied by Tai-kor Wong and Chan Ah Fook.
“Sergeant Thomson!”
The Englishman hesitated. Then a look of recognition came into his eyes. Baba Wee was well-known for the grand party he held for the Europeans in Penang every year.
“I hope no harm has come to you, sir.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Thomson. You and your men have saved my life,” Baba Wee replied in his best English as he shook hands with the young man.
Tai-kor Wong, standing beside his father-in-law, was aware that keen eyes behind the wooden shutters of shophouses peering through the slits of the windows in the upper storeys were taking in everything, especially the handshake between Baba Wee and the representative of British authority in Penang. The significance of the handshake was not lost on Tai-kor Wong. He stuck out his hand and murmured in his best English, “Tank you, Kapitan Tomsen.”
Chan Ah Fook, taking the cue from his leader, repeated loud enough for all to hear, “Tank you, Kapitan Tomsen!”
“Tank you.”
“Tank you.”
“I shall call upon the lieutenant governor and thank him personally for maintaining such an effective police force on the island. As a member of the trading community here, I’m very grateful to your men and I shall see that your effort does not remain unknown.”
“Why, thank you, sir, that’s most kind of you.” The young sergeant blushed.
His youth, his inexperience, being a recent arrival to the colony, and his background as the son of a poor clergyman made him susceptible to their courteous bowing and respectful mutterings of “Thank you, thank you.” The young sergeant was so overwhelmed by the old man’s courtesy and gratitude that when the Indian driver returned with his gharry and horses, he promptly helped Baba Wee into the vehicle. The dignified old Baba smiled and thanked him before driving away, leaving the Englishman completely oblivious of the way he had been manipulated into demonstrating support for the White Cranes. For the sight of an English officer from the colonial police force shaking hands with an elder of the White Cranes and helping him into his gharry could not fail but leave an indelible impression on all the watchers. Tai-kor Wong and Chan Ah Fook could hardly suppress their smiles. The prestige of the White Cranes had risen as high as the heavens.
“Did you see that? Your father-in-law, nobody can match him in cunning. Those Hakka swine will think twice now before they attack us.”
“Right, right!” Tai-kor Wong chuckled. “My old fox led the red-haired devil like a puppy on a string. Did you see how the puppy danced? These barbarians are so stupid!”
“Tai-kor, don’t look down on them. I used to think they were stupid too. But I’ve heard their queen is cunning as a fox spirit! She’s got more guns and ships than our Empress Dowager. If our Old Buddha is like their queen, then she can throw all the foreigners out of China!”
“Watch your tongue, old man!”
“It’s true. The Old Buddha is senile!”
“Enough, old man! One day you’ll go home and the Manchu dogs will sniff you out and kill you!”
Tai-kor Wong shook his head. Ah Fook’s heretical ideas could land him in trouble, even death by beheading. Spies were always on the lookout for anti-Manchu elements, especially in the city of Kwangtung. He himself was no supporter of the Manchus, but his Chinese soul believed that the Son of Heaven was indeed superior to all other rulers in the world. He recoiled instinctively from the thought that the red-haired queen of the foreign devils was cleverer and wiser than the Empress Dowager of China. Impossible! If it was true, it’d turn his world upside-down. He was shocked by Ah Fook’s irreverence. Yet, at the same time, he was drawn irresistibly to it. The blood of generations of rebellious Cantonese flowed strongly through his veins. Heresy attracted him and heretical ideas once uttered could not remain motionless in his mind. They rocked and agitated his thoughts. Rumours, gossip, bits of news of recent events in China crowded into his head as he listened to Ah Fook’s argument that the Manchus were losing ground to the red-haired foreign devils. Chinese ships had been sunk by the English navy off the coast of Shanghai two months ago. The Germans had landed in Shantung and defeated a Chinese army led by a great Qing general. The imperial eunuch, Admiral Ying Min, had just lost an important naval battle to the foreign devils because there were not enough ships and ammunition. The news startled him.
“So ... ah ... so...” He struggled to accept the fact that Ah Fook’s view was not so untenable in these troubled times.
“Tai-kor! Is the Manchu court a Chinese court? The Empress Dowager and the emperor are not Han Chinese. Have you forgotten the glory of Ming?”
“Not so loud, old man!”
“What’s there to be afraid of? Death? Thousands have died. If I don’t die today, I’ll die tomorrow. But one day we’ll restore the glory of Ming and the Han people! ”
“Old friend, be careful with your tongue!”
“This is Penang, not China! Do I talk like this to every son of a dog? Except to Tuck Heng. The boy’s a hero now.”
“Tuck Heng! Tuck Heng! I’ve heard nothing but Tuck Heng!”
“What’re you complaining about? Look, he’s cured my bad leg.” Ah Fook pulled up his trousers and showed him the patch of black herbs Tuck Heng had plastered on his old wound.
Tai-kor Wong swore under his breath.
“Save your curses for later, Tai-kor! Wong-soh is waiting for you. She’s adopted Tuck Heng.”
“Let her wait! That bitch always does things first, then tells me later! Now she’s gone and adopted the boy and expects me to accept him as my son too! Did I say I needed a son? Did I?”