A midnight mist had begun inching across the harbour by the time Jingee, Kiro, and Cheng-So Gilbert waded ashore in a swamp beyond the Merchants’ Wharf. Anxious to get out of the oily water, Gilbert ran in long, splashing steps, looking for a tree or branch to grip on to for support in the marshy shallows.
‘Shhh,’ cautioned Kiro, motioning Gilbert to stop making so much noise. Before the interpreter had time to explain his actions, Jingee grabbed both him and Kiro by the arms and pulled them down to water-level.
Pointing through reeds, he whispered, ‘Boat.’
The three men knelt chest-deep in the filthy swamp, watching a sampan drift slowly along the edge of the reed beds. A lantern swung from the boat’s low prow, one man standing above it with a spear poised high over his shoulder, a second man gently poling the sampan through the water, eyes trained on the light’s phosphorescent reflection.
‘What are they doing?’ whispered Cheng-So Gilbert.
‘Octopus,’ Kiro answered.
‘Octopus?’ Cheng-So Gilbert looked anxiously around him in the swamp.
‘The lantern attracts the octopus to the surface,’ whispered Kiro, pleased to be the one explaining facts to the Chinese interpreter for a change. ‘They are drawn to the light and the fisherman stabs them.’
Jingee was more interested in the plan to find a boat than in hearing about octopus fishermen. He said, ‘There are only two of them and three of us. Why don’t we tip over the sampan and take it?’
Kiro disagreed. ‘Even if we could surprise them and take it, another sampan might be following close behind and would rush to their aid.’
Determined to seize the fishermen’s boat, Jingee moved through the reeds, looking up and down the harbour for approaching craft. To his right, another lantern appeared in the hazy darkness—two men armed with spears instead of one.
Jingee crouched while the second sampan passed and then waded back to Kiro. ‘We wait longer,’ he admitted.
Gilbert asked impatiently, ‘What if they only come in twos and threes? We can’t stay here all night.’
Kiro remained calm. ‘Then we swim down the harbour and steal a boat from the wharf.’
‘Oh, we’re certain to get caught,’ Gilbert moaned. ‘We’ll all be thrown into prison. I’ll be beheaded as a traitor.’
Irritated by the Chinaman’s cowardice, Jingee chided him, ‘Stop complaining. You knew the risks before we started.’
Cheng-So Gilbert was not cowardly; he merely wished he was not here tonight, not involved with the Bombay Marines in a rescue attempt for their leader. He remembered how excited he had been when he had originally been hired by the East India Company to serve traders as an interpreter between Macao and Madras. The Chinese considered Europeans inferior, avoiding their companionship, calling them barbarians and unclean. Being half-caste, Cheng-So Gilbert not only suffered prejudice in China but also found difficulty in obtaining employment. As Englishmen were equally suspicious of the Chinese, they welcomed a man of mixed blood more than someone of pure Chinese descent. Heartened by that acceptance, Gilbert began to entertain hopes of travelling to England and making his fortune in the great capital of London. But what would happen to his dreams if the Manchu found him involved in a covert plan to abduct Adam Horne from an Imperial war junk?
‘Look.’ Kiro pointed out into the bay.
Gilbert and Jingee sloshed forward through the marsh and saw a small junk with a gold dragon fluttering from its mast.
‘The imperial flag,’ gasped Gilbert.
‘A patrol boat,’ said Kiro.
‘Do you think they’re looking for us?’ asked Jingee.
Gilbert was firm. ‘Now you will cancel these foolish plans.’
‘Cancel?’ Jingee asked indignantly. ‘How are we to rescue Captain Horne?’
Gilbert took a deep breath, baffled by such stupidity. Surely a man’s loyalty was first to himself.
* * *
‘The women think we’re from a Dutch colony on Java,’ whispered Groot as he, Jud and Babcock followed three Chinese courtesans along a suspended bamboo footbridge to the harbour moorings. Groot had been made the group’s spokesman in the women’s house when it had become clear that the courtesans had learned Dutch from trading ships visiting Whampoa.
‘What reason did you give them for wanting them to row us out to the war junks?’ asked Jud, behind him.
‘I haven’t told them yet where we want to go,’ Groot whispered. ‘I just said we wanted to have a ride in their sampan.’
‘You better say something soon.’ Babcock looked at the three giggling women ahead of them on the narrow footbridge.
‘There’s no reason to worry,’ insisted Groot. ‘It’s like Cheng-So Gilbert said: flower girls keep sampans to take customers around the harbour.’
The three women were short, one more corpulent than the others and one of the slim women considerably older than her two companions. Each carried a bamboo pole from which dangled a paper lantern, and they had also brought earthen bottles of spirits from which they kept pausing to sip, chattering and giggling among themselves as they replaced the stoppers and continued towards the moorings.
‘I’ve never seen women drink so much,’ Babcock complained as the courtesans took one last swig before descending a bamboo ladder to a cluster of sampans bobbing beneath the bridge.
Groot defended them. ‘It’s the custom in China for women to drink as much as men. Especially at banquets.’
‘Is this their version of a banquet?’ Jud laughed.
‘Maybe any visitor means a feast.’
Babcock frowned, ‘Ummm. We’ll see.’
The women had begun to climb down the ladder, gripping one side while managing to carry their lantern poles and bottles, and to grasp the hems of their long robes.
Jud followed; then Babcock, then Groot, stepping cautiously into the long, narrow boat as it tilted in the water.
Leather curtains hung from the front and back of the sampan’s arched central awning. Inside there were colourful cushions and rosewood boxes scattered over the reed matting, and the air was redolent of incense. Two of the women waved to their guests to rest on the cushions while the third—the most corpulent—crawled towards the aft curtain.
‘That’s your girl, Groot.’ Babcock elbowed him. ‘Stick with her.’
‘Is she rowing?’
‘Go and find out.’
Babcock ignored Groot’s sudden nerves, becoming increasingly interested in the other two women; one courtesan patted a heap of cushions for him to sit on beside her; the third nodded animatedly to Jud.
Jud returned the woman’s smiles and, waving Groot towards the curtain, whispered, ‘Just keep us on course.’
Lingering half-in, half-out of the curtain, Groot asked, ‘What if she won’t go near the war junks?’
‘Now’s your time to learn how to handle a woman, mate,’ called Babcock as he sank down on the cushions.
Beads of perspiration coursed through the dried clay on Groot’s brow as he left the sweet-smelling cabin.
Inside, Jud settled down on the reed matting, groaning pleasurably as his companion knelt behind his head, rubbing his broad shoulders with her tiny yellow hands and singing a soft song.
Closing his eyes, he admitted, ‘This is exactly what I need.’
‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ warned Babcock.
‘We’ve got time for a little relaxation.’
Babcock was not listening; his companion had unlocked one of the small rosewood boxes, smiling as she extended it to Babcock, offering him a choice of dim-sun pastries with one hand while her other hand stroked his leg.
Outside the cabin, the chubby woman had lit more lanterns, festooning the sampan with coloured paper shades. Seating herself on a thwart, the vessel’s single oar seemed unwieldy in her small hands, but she used it deftly, only pausing to take an occasional drink of arrack. Offering the earthen bottle to Groot, she laughed when he refused a drink, and returned to her work.
The harbour traffic had thinned as the night-time mist spread across the water. Groot stood up periodically to make certain they were moving westwards towards the three war junks, then settled down again in front of the curtain, trying to ignore the voices of Jud and Babcock rising behind him.
The small boat was half-way across the harbour, and Groot was peering around the curve of the awning to check the sampan’s progress, when he saw a junk approaching through the mist.
Scrambling up, he spotted a flag emblazoned with a gold dragon flapping gently from the mast.
Ducking through the leather curtain, he whispered, ‘Quick. A patrol boat.’
Babcock looked up from his woman. ‘What?’
‘A patrol boat,’ Groot repeated more loudly, pointing nervously towards the prow.
Behind him, the fat woman had ceased rowing and began calling through the night to the junk.
Babcock and Jud looked quizzically at one another; their two women jumped to their feet, holding out their hands and chattering in Chinese.
‘What do they want?’ asked Babcock. ‘We’ve already paid them.’
‘More money,’ answered Jud, looking from one woman to the other.
‘What the hell for?’
Behind them, the third woman stuck her head through the curtain, also holding out her hand, shrilling at Groot in pidgin Dutch.
Groot translated. ‘They need money to pay the patrol boat.’
‘Pay?’ Babcock swung his feet on to the matting. ‘Pay what?’
‘A cumshaw. A tax to row their sampan around the harbour at night.’
Grudgingly, Babcock dug into his breeches for the leather money pouch.
* * *
At the same hour, on the eastern edge of Whampoa harbour, a half-naked man stood on the verandah of a small stilted house. Having been awakened from his sleep by a strange noise, the man gripped a knife in one hand as he peered into the night’s misty darkness. Looking over the bamboo railing, he saw two strangers pushing his boat into the water. As he began shouting at them to stop, a figure emerged from the darkness beside him, raised one hand and chopped him across the back of the neck. The attacker hurriedly bound the unconscious man with leather thongs and, taking his knife and a coil of rope, shinned down a pole to the water and began swimming to catch up with the other two men in the stolen boat.