“I blame myself,” says Whampoa, sipping his sherry. “For years one does business with a man, and if his credit is good and his merchandise sound, one clicks the abacus and sets aside the doubts one feels on looking into his eyes.” He was enthroned behind his great desk, impassive as Buddha, with one of his little tarts beside him holding the Amontillado bottle. “I knew he was not safe, but I let it go, even when I saw how he watched your golden lady two evenings since. It disturbed me, but I am a lazy, stupid and selfish fool, so I did nothing. You shall tell me so, Mr Flashman, and I shall bow my unworthy head beneath your deserved censure.”
He nodded towards me while his glass was refilled, and Catchick Moses burst out:
“Not as stupid as I, for G-d’s sake, and I’m a man of business, they say! Yeh! Haven’t I for the past week been watching him liquidate his assets, closing his warehouses, selling his stock to my committee, auctioning his lighters?” He spread his hands. “Who cared? He was a cash-on-the-table man, so did I mind where he came from, or that nobody knew him before ten years back? He was in spice, they said, and silk, and antimony, and G-d-knows-what, with plantations up the coast and something-or-other in the Islands – and now you tell us, Whampoa, that no one has ever seen these estates of his?”
“That is my information in the past few hours,” says Whampoa gravely. “It amounts to this: he has great riches, but no one knows where they come from. He is a Singapore middle-man, but he is not alone in that. His name was good, because he did good business—”
“And now he has done us!” cries Catchick. “This, in Singapore! Under our very noses, in the most respectable community in Asia, he steals a great English lady – what will they say in the world, hey? Where’s our reputation, our good name, I should like to know. It’s gone out yonder, heaven knows where, aboard his accursed brig! Pirates, they’ll call us – thieves and kidnappers! I tell you, Whampoa, this could ruin trade for five years—”
“In G-d’s name, man!” cries Brooke. “It could ruin Mrs Flashman for ever!”
“Oi-hoi!” cries Catchick, clutching his head with his hands, and then he came trotting across to me and dropped his hand on my shoulder, kneading away at me. “Oh, my poor friend, forgive me!” he groans. “My poor friend!”
It was just on dawn, and we had been engaged in such useful conversation for two hours past. At least, they had; I had been sitting in silence, sick with shock and pain, while Catchick Moses apostrophized and tore his whiskers, Whampoa reviled himself in precise, grammatical terms and sank half a gallon of Manzanilla, Balestier, the American consul, who had been summoned, d----d Solomon to Hades and beyond, and two or three other leading citizens shook their heads and exclaimed from time to time. Brooke just listened, mostly, having sent his people out to pick up news; there was a steady trickle of Whampoa’s Chinese, too, coming in to report, but adding little to what we already knew. And that was knowledge enough, stark and unbelievable.
Most of it came from old Morrison, who had been abandoned on the bay island where the party had picnicked. He had gone to sleep, he said – full of drugged drink, no doubt, and had come to in the late evening to find the Sulu Queen hull down on the horizon, steaming away east – this was confirmed by the captain of an American clipper, one Waterman, who had passed her as he came into port. Morrison had been picked up by some native fishermen and had arrived at the quay after nightfall to pour out his tale, and now the whole community was in uproar. Whampoa had taken it upon himself to get to the bottom of the thing – he had feelers every where, of course – and had put Morrison to bed upstairs, where the old goat was in a state of prostration. The Governor had been informed, with the result that brows were being clutched, oaths sworn, fists shaken, and sal volatile sold out in the shops, no doubt. There hadn’t been a sensation like it since the last Presbyterian Church jumble sale. But of course nothing was done.
At first, everyone had said it was a mistake; the Sulu Queen was off on some pleasure jaunt. But when Catchick and Whampoa pieced it all together, that wouldn’t do: it was discovered that Solomon had been quietly selling up in Singapore, that when all was said, no one knew a d----d thing about him, and that all the signs were that he was intending to clear out, leaving not a wrack behind. Hence the loud recriminations, and the dropped voices when they remembered that I was present, and the repeated demands as to what should be done now.
Only Brooke seemed to have any notions, and they weren’t much help. “Pursuit,” cries he, with his eyes blazing. “She’s going to be rescued, don’t doubt that for a moment.” He dropped a hand on my uninjured shoulder. “I’m with you in this; we all are, and as I’ve a soul to save I won’t rest until you have her safe back, and this evil rascal has received condign punishment. So there – we’ll find her, if we have to rake the sea to Australia and back! My word on it.”
The others growled agreement, and looked resolute and sympathetic and scratched themselves, and then Whampoa signs to his girl for more liquor and says gravely:
“Indeed, everyone supports your majesty in this” – it says much about my condition that I never thought twice about that remarkable form of address to an English sailor in a pea-jacket and pilot cap – “but it is difficult to see how pursuit can be made until we have precise information about where they have gone.”
“My G-d, that is the truth,” groans Catchick Moses. “They may be anywhere. How many millions of miles of sea, how many islands, half of them uncharted – two thousand, five, ten? Does anyone know, even? And such islands – swarming with pirates, cannibals, head-takers – in G-d’s name, my friend, this rascal may have taken her anywhere. And there is no vessel in port fit to pursue a steam-brig.”
“It’s a job for the Royal Navy,” says Balestier. “Our navy boys, too – they’ll have to track this villain, run him to earth, and—”
“Jeesh!” cries Catchick, heaving himself up. “What are you saying? What Royal Navy? What navy boys? Where is Belcher with his squadron – two t’ousand miles away, chasing the Lanun brigands round Mindanao! Where is your one American navy boat? Do you know, Balestier? Somewhere between Japan and New Zealand – maybe! Where is Seymour’s Wanderer, or Hastings with the Harlequin—?”
“Dido’s due from Calcutta in two or three days,” says Balestier. “Keppel knows these seas as well as anyone—”
“And how well is that?” croaks Catchick, flapping his hands and stalking about. “Be practical! Be calm! It is terra incognita out yonder – as we all know, as everyone knows! And it is vast! If we had the whole Royal Navy, American and Dutch as well, from all the oceans of the world, they could search to the end of the century and never cover half the places where this rascal may be hiding – why, he may have gone anywhere. Don’t we know his brig can sail round the world if need be?”
“I think not,” says Whampoa quietly. “I have reason – I fear I may have reason – to believe that he will not sail beyond our Indies.”
“Even then – haven’t I told you that there are ten million lurking places between Cochin and Java?”
“And ten million eyes that won’t miss a steam-brig, and will pass word to us wherever she anchors,” snaps Brooke. “See here—” and he slapped the map they had unrolled on Whampoa’s desk. “The Sulu Queen was last seen heading cast, according to Bully Waterman. Very well – he won’t double back, that’s certain; Sumatra’s no use to him, anyway. And I don’t see him turning north – that’s either open sea or the Malay coast, where we’d soon have word of him. South – perhaps, but if he runs through Karamata we’ll hear of it. So I’ll stake my head he’ll stay on the course he’s taken – and that means Borneo.”
“Oi-hoi!” cries Catchick, between derision and despair. “And is that nothing, then? Borneo – where every river is a pirate nest, where every bay is an armed camp – where even you don’t venture far, J.B., without an armed expedition at your back. And when you do, you know where you are going – not like now, when you might hunt forever!”
“I’ll know where I’m going,” says Brooke. “And if I have to hunt forever … well, I’ll find him, sooner or later.”
Catchick shot an uneasy glance across at me where I sat in the corner, nursing my wound, and I saw him pluck at Brooke’s sleeve and mutter something of which I caught only the words “… too late by then.” At that they fell silent, while Brooke pored over his map and Whampoa sat silent, sipping his d----d sherry. Balestier and the others talked in low voices, and Catchick slumped in a chair, hands in pockets, the picture of gloom.
You may wonder what I was thinking while all this hot air was being expelled, and why I wasn’t taking part as a bereaved and distracted husband should – wild cries of impotent rage and grief, prayers to heaven, vows of revenge, and all the usual preliminaries to inaction. The fact was, I had troubles enough – my shoulder was giving me gyp, and having not recovered from the terror I’d faced myself that night, I didn’t have much emotion left to spare, even for Elspeth, once the first shock of the news had worn off. She was gone – kidnapped by that half-caste scum, and what feelings I had were mostly about him. The slimy, twisting, insinuating hound had planned all this, over months – it was incredible, but he must have been so infatuated with her that he was prepared to steal her, make himself an outcast and outlaw, put himself beyond the bounds of civilization for good, just on her account. There was no sense in it – no woman’s worth that. Why, as I sat there, trying to take it in, I knew I wouldn’t have done it, not for Elspeth and a pound of tea – not for Aphrodite herself and ten thousand a year. But I’m not a rich, spoiled dago, of course. Even so, it was past belief.
Don’t misunderstand me – I loved Elspeth, pretty well, no error; still do, if being used to having her about the place is anything to go by, and missing her if she’s too long gone. But there are limits, and I was suddenly aware of them now. On the one hand, she was a rare beauty, the finest mount I’d ever struck, and an heiress to boot, but on t’other, I hadn’t wed her willingly, we’d spent most of our married life apart, and no harm done, and I couldn’t for the life of me work up a frenzy of anxiety on her account now. After all, the worst that could happen, to her, was that this scoundrel would roger her, if he hadn’t done it already while my back was turned – well, that was nothing new to her; she’d had me, and enjoyed it, and I hadn’t been her only partner, I was certain. So being rattled stupid by Solomon would be no fate worse than death to her; if I knew the little trollop, she’d revel in it.
Beyond that, well, if he didn’t tire of her (and considering the sacrifices he’d made to get her, he presumably intended to keep her) he’d probably look after her well enough; he wasn’t short of blunt, and could no doubt support her in luxury in some exotic corner of the world. She’d miss England, of course, but taking the long view, her prospects weren’t unendurable. It would make a change for her.
But that was only one side of it, of course – her side, which shows, since I’ve put it first, that I ain’t so selfish after all. What did twist my innards with fury was shame and injured pride. Here was my wife – the beloved of the heroic Flashy – stolen from him by a swarthy, treacherous, lecherous, Etonian nigger, who’d be bulling her all over the shop, and what the deuce was I to do about it? He was cuckolding me, by G-d, as he might well have done twenty times already – by George, there was a fine thought – who was to say she hadn’t gone with him willingly? But no, idiot and flirt that she was, she knew better than that. Either way, though, I looked d----d ridiculous, and there wasn’t a thing to be done. Oh, there would have to be racing and chasing after her and Solomon, to no avail – in those first hours, you see, I was certain that she was gone for good: Catchick was right, we hadn’t a hope of getting her back. What then? There would still have to be months, perhaps years, of fruitless searching, for form’s sake, expensive, confounded risky, and there I’d be, at the end of it, going home, and when people asked after her, saying: “Oh, she was kidnapped, don’t you know, out East. No, never did discover what happened to her.” J---s, I’d be the laughing-stock of the country – Flashy, the man whose wife was pinched by a half-breed millionaire … “Close friend of the family, too … well, they say she was pinched, but who knows? … probably tired of old Flash, what? – felt like some Oriental mutton for a change, ha-ha.”
I ground my teeth and cursed the day I’d ever set eyes on her, but above all, I felt such hatred of Solomon as I’ve never felt for any other human being. That he’d done this to me – there was no fate too horrible for the greasy rat, but precious little chance of inflicting it, so far as I could see at the moment. I was helpless, while that b----y wop steamed off with my wife – I could just picture him galloping away at her while she pretended maiden modesty, and the world roared with laughter at me, and in my rage and misery I must have let out a muffled yowl, for Brooke turned away from his map, strode across, dropped on one knee beside my chair, gripped my arm, and cries:
“You poor chap! What must you be feeling! It must be unbearable – the thought of your loved one in the hands of that dastard. I can share your anguish,” he went on, “for I know how I should feel if it were my mother. We must trust in God and our own endeavours – and don’t you fret, we shall win her back.”
He absolutely had tears in his eyes, and had to turn his head aside to hide his emotions; I heard him mutter about “a captive damosel” and “blue eyes and golden hair of hyacinthine flow” or some fustian of that sort.17 Then, having clasped my hand, he went back to his map and said that if the b----r had taken her to Borneo he’d turn the place inside out.
“An unexplored island the size of Europe,” says Catchick mournfully. “And even then you are only guessing. If he has gone east, it may as well be to the Celebes or the Philippines.”
“He burns wood, doesn’t he?” says Brooke. “Then he’ll touch Borneo – and that’s my bailiwick. Let him show his nose there, and I’ll hear of it.”
“But you are not in Borneo, my friend—”
“I will be, though, within a week of Keppel’s getting here in Dido. You know her – eighteen guns, two hundred blue-jackets, and Keppel would sail her to the Pole and back on a venture like this!” He was fairly glittering with eagerness. “He and I have run more chases than you can count, Catchick. Once we get this fox’s scent, he can double and turn till he’s dizzy, but we’ll get him! Aye, he can sail to China—”
“Needle in a haystack,” says Balestier, and Catchick and the others joined in, some supporting Brooke and others shaking their heads; while they were at it, one of Whampoa’s Chinese slipped in and whispered in his master’s ear for a full minute, and our host put down his sherry glass and opened his slit eyes a fraction wider, which for him was the equivalent of leaping to his feet and shouting “Great Scott!” Then he tapped the table, and they shut up.
“If you will forgive my interruption,” says Whampoa, “I have information which I believe may be vital to us, and to the safety of the beautiful Mrs Flashman.” He ducked his head at me. “A little time ago I ventured the humble opinion that her abductor would not sail beyond the Indies waters; I had developed a theory, from the scant information in my possession; my agents have been testing it in the few hours that have elapsed since this deplorable crime took place. It concerned the identity of this mysterious Don Solomon Haslam, whom Singapore has known as a merchant and trader – for how long?”
“Ten years or thereabouts,” says Catchick. “He came here as a young man, in about ’35.”
Whampoa bowed acknowledgement. “Precisely; that accords with my own recollection. Since then, when he established a warehouse here, he has visited our port only occasionally, spending most of his time – where? No one knows. It was assumed that he was on trading ventures, or on these estates about which he talked vaguely. Then, three years ago, he returned to England, where he had been at school. He returns how, with Mr and Mrs Flashman, and Mr Morrison.”
“Well, well,” cries Catchick. “We know all this. What of it?”
“We know nothing of his parentage, his birth, or his early life,” says Whampoa. “We know he is fabulously rich, that he never touches strong drink, and I gather – from conversation I have had with Mr Morrison – that on his brig he commonly wore the sarong and went barefoot.” He shrugged. “These are small things; what do they indicate? That he is half-caste, we know; I suggest the evidence points to his being a Muslim, although there is no proof that he ever observes the rituals of that faith. Now then, a rich Muslim, who speaks fluent Malay—”
“The Islands are full of ’em,” cries Brooke. “What are you driving at?”
“—who has been known in these waters for ten years, except for the last three, when he was in England. And his name is Solomon Haslam, to which he attaches the Spanish honorific ‘Don’.”
They were still as mice, listening. Whampoa turned his expressionless yellow face, surveying them, and tapped his glass, which the wench refilled.
“This suggests nothing to you? Not to you, Catchick? Mr Balestier? Your majesty?” This to Brooke, who shook his head. “It did not to me, either,” Whampoa continued, “until I considered his name, and something stirred in my poor memory. Another name. Your majesty knows, I am sure, the names of the principal pirates of the Borneo coast for several years back – could you recall some of them to us now?”
“Pirates?” cries Brooke. “You’re not suggesting—”
“If you please,” says Whampoa.
“Why – well then, let’s see,” Brooke frowned. “There’s Jaffir, at Fort Linga; Sharif Muller of the Skrang – nearly cornered him on the Rajang last year – then there’s Pangeran Suva, out of Brunei; Suleiman Usman of Maludu, but no one’s heard of him for long enough; Sharif Sahib of Patusan; Ranu—”
He broke off, for Catchick Moses had let fly one of his amazing Hebrew exclamations, and was staring at Whampoa, who nodded placidly.
“You noticed, Catchick. As I did – I ask myself why I did not notice five years ago. That name,” and he looked at Brooke, and sipped his sherry. “‘Suleiman Usman of Maludu, but no one has heard of him for long enough’,” he repeated. “I think – indeed, I know, that no one has heard of him for precisely three years. Suleiman Usman – Solomon Haslam.” He put down his sherry glass.
For a moment there was stupefied silence, and then Balestier burst out:
“But that can’t be! What – a coast pirate, and you suggest he set up shop here, amongst us, as a trader, and carried on business, and went a-pirating on the side? That’s not just too rich – it’s downright crazy—”
“What better cover for piracy?” wonders Whampoa. “What better means of collecting information?”
“But d--n it, this fellow Haslam’s a public school man!” cries Brooke. “Isn’t he?”
“He attended Eton College,” says Whampoa gravely, “but that is not, in itself, necessarily inconsistent with a later life of crime.”
“But consider!” cries Catchick. “If it were as you say, would any sane man adopt an alias so close to his own name? Wouldn’t he call himself Smith, or Brown; or – or anything?”
“Not necessarily,” says Whampoa. “I do not doubt that when his parent – or whoever it was – arranged for his English education, he entered school under his true name, which might well be rendered into English as Solomon Haslam. The first name is an exact translation; the second, an English name reasonably close to Usman. And there is nothing impossible about some wealthy Borneo raja or sharif sending his child to an English school – unusual, yes, but it has certainly happened in this case. And the son, following in his father’s footsteps, has practised piracy, which we know is the profession of half the population of the Islands. At the same time, he has developed business interests in England and Singapore – which he has now decided to cut.”
“And stolen another man’s wife, to carry her off to his pirate lair?” scoffs Balestier. “Oh, but this is beyond reason—”
“Hardly more unreasonable than to suppose that Don Solomon Haslam, if he were not a pirate, would kidnap an English lady,” says Whampoa.
“Oh, but you’re only guessing!” cries Catchick. “A coincidence in names—”
“And in times. Solomon Haslam went to England three years ago – and Suleiman Usman vanished at the same time.”
That silenced them, and then Brooke says slowly:
“It might be true, but if it was, what difference does it make, after all—”
“Some, I think. For if it is true you need look no farther than Borneo for the Sulu Queen’s destination. Maludu lies north, beyond the Papar river, in unexplored country. He may go there, or take cover among his allies on the Seribas river or the Batang Lupar—”
“If he does, he’s done for!” cries Brooke excitedly. “I can bottle him there, or anywhere between Kuching and Serikei Point!”
Whampoa sluiced down some more sherry. “It may not be so easy. Suleiman Usman was a man of power; his fort at Maludu was accounted impregnable, and he could draw at need on the great pirate fleets of the Lanun and Balagnini and Maluku of Gillalao. You have fought pirates, your majesty, I know – but hardly as many as these.”
“I’d fight every sea-robber from Luzon to Sumatra in this quarrel,” says Brooke. “And beat ’em. And swing Suleiman Usman from the Dido’s foretop at the end of it.”
“If he is the man you are looking for,” says Catchick. “Whampoa may be wrong.”
“Undoubtedly, I make frequent mistakes, in my poor ignorance,” says Whampoa. “But not, I think, in this. I have further proof. No one among us, I believe, has ever seen Suleiman Usman of Maludu – or met anyone who has? No. However, my agents have been diligent tonight, and I can now supply a brief description. About thirty years old, over two yards in height, of stout build, unmarked features. Is it enough?”
It was enough for one listener, at any rate. Why not – it was no more incredible than all the rest of the events of that fearful night; indeed, it seemed to confirm them, as Whampoa pointed out.
“I would suggest also,” says he, “that we need look no further for an explanation of the attack by Black-faces on Mr Flashman,” and they all turned to stare at me. “Tell me, sir – you dined at a restaurant, before the attack? The Temple of Heaven, as I understand—”
“By G-d!” I croaked. “It was Haslam who recommended it!”
Whampoa shrugged. “Remove the husband, and the most ardent pursuer is disposed of. Such an assassination might be difficult to arrange, for an ordinary Singapore merchant, but to a pirate, with his connections with the criminal community, it would be simple.”
“The cowardly swine!” cries Brooke. “Well, his ruffians were out of luck, weren’t they? The pursuer’s ready for the chase, ain’t you, Flashman? And between us we’ll make this scoundrel Usman or Haslam rue the day he dared to cast eyes on an Englishwoman. We’ll smoke him out, and his foul crew with him. Oh, let me alone for that!”
I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, I confess, and I didn’t know James Brooke at this moment for anything but a smiling madman in a pilot-cap, with an odd taste in friends and followers. If I’d known him for what he truly was, I’d have been in an even more agitated condition when our discussion finally ended, and I was helped up Whampoa’s staircase to a magnificent bed-chamber, and tucked in between silk sheets, bandaged shoulder and all, by his stewards and Dr Mackenzie. I hardly knew where I was; my mind was in a perfect spin, but when they’d left me, and I was lying staring up at the thin rays of sunlight that were breaking through the screens – for it was now full day outside – there broke at last the sudden dreadful realization of what had happened. Elspeth was gone; she was in the clutches of a nigger pirate, who could take her beyond the maps of Europeans, to some horrible stronghold where she’d be his slave, where we could never hope to find her – my beautiful, idiot Elspeth, with her creamy skin and golden hair and imbecile smile and wonderful body, lost to me, forever.
I ain’t sentimental, but suddenly I could feel the tears running down my face, and I was muttering her name in the darkness, over and over, alone in my empty bed, where she ought to have been, all soft and warm and passionate – and just then there was a scratching at my door, and when it opened, there was Whampoa, bowing from his great height on the threshold. He came forward beside the bed, his hands tucked into his sleeves, and looked down at me. Was my shoulder, he asked, giving me great pain? I said it was agony.
“But no greater,” says he, “than your torment of mind. That, too, nothing can alleviate. The loss you have suffered of the loveliest of companions, is a deprivation which cannot but excite compassion in any man of feeling. I know that nothing can take the place of the beautiful golden lady, and that every thought of her must be a pang of the most exquisite agony. But as some small, poor consolation to your grief of mind and body, I humbly offer the best that my poor establishment provides.” He said something in Chinese, and through the door, to my amazement, glided two of his little Chink girls, one in red silk, t’other in green. They came forward and stood either side of the bed, like voluptuous little dolls, and began to unbutton their dresses.
“These are White Tigress and Honey-and-Milk,” says Whampoa. “To offer you the services of only one would have seemed an insulting comparison with the magic of your exquisite lady, therefore I send two, in the hope that quantity may be some trivial amend for a quality which they cannot hope to approach. Triflingly inadequate as they are, their presence may soothe your pains in some infinitesimal degree. They are skilful by our mean standards, but if their clumsiness and undoubted ugliness are offensive, you should beat them for their correction and your pleasure. Forgive my presumption in presenting them.”
He bowed, retreating, and the door closed behind him just as the two dresses dropped to the floor with a gentle swish, and two girlish giggles sounded in the dimness.
You must never refuse an Oriental’s hospitality, you know. It doesn’t do, or they get offended; you just have to buckle to and pretend it’s exactly what you wanted, whether you like it or not.
For four days I was confined in Whampoa’s house with my gashed shoulder, recuperating, and I’ve never had a more blissfully ruinous convalescence in my life. It would have been interesting, had there been time, to see whether my wound healed before Whampoa’s solicitous young ladies killed me with their attentions; my own belief is that I would have expired just about the time the stitches were ready to come out. As it was, my confinement was cut short by the arrival and swift departure of HMS Dido, commanded by one Keppel, RN; willy-nilly, I had to sail with her, staggering aboard still weak with loss of blood, et cetera, clutching the gangway not so much for support as to prevent my being wafted away by the first puff of breeze.
You see, it was taken for granted that as a devoted husband and military hero, I was in a sweat to be off in quest of my abducted spouse and her pirate ravisher – that was one of the disadvantages of life on the frontiers of Empire in the earlies, that you were expected to do your own avenging and recovering, with such assistance as the authorities might lend. Not my style at all; left to old Flash it would have been a case of tooling round to the local constabulary, reporting a kidnapped wife, leaving my name and address, and letting ’em get on with it. After all, it’s what they’re paid for, and why else was I stumping up sevenpence in the pound income tax?
I said as much to old Morrison, thinking it was the kind of view that would appeal to him, but all I got for my pains was tears and curses.
“You’re tae blame!” whimpers he, for he was far too reduced to bawl; he looked fit to pass away, his eyes sunk and his cheeks blenched, but still full of spite against me. “If you had been daein’ your duty as a husband, this would never have happened. Oh, Goad, ma puir wee lamb! My wee bit lassie – and you, where were ye? Whoorin’ away in some hoose o’ ill fame, like enough, while—”
“Nothing of the sort!” cries I indignantly. “I was at a Chinese restaurant,” at which he set up a great wail, burying his head in the bed-clothes and bawling about his wee bairn.
“Ye’ll bring her back!” he croaks presently. “Ye’ll save her – you’re a military man, wi’ decorations, an’ she’s the wife o’ your boozum, so she is! Say ye’ll bring her back tae her puir auld faither? Aye, ye’ll dae that – ye’re a guid lad, Harry – ye’ll no’ fail her.” And more in the same nauseating vein, interspersed with curses that he had ever set foot outside Glasgow. No doubt it was very pitiable, and if I’d been less disturbed myself and hadn’t despised the little swine so heartily, I might have felt sorry for him. I doubt it, though.
I left him lamenting, and went off to nurse my shoulder and reflect gloomily that there was no help for it – I would have to be first in the field when the pursuit got under way. The fellow Brooke, who – for reasons that I couldn’t fathom just then – seemed to have taken on himself the planning of the expedition, obviously took it for granted that I would go, and when Keppel arrived and agreed at once to put Dido and her crew into the business, there was no hanging back any longer.
Brooke was in a great lather of impatience to be away, and stamped and ground his teeth when Keppel said it would be at least three days before he could sail; he had treasure from Calcutta to unload, and must lay in stores and equipment for the expedition. “It’ll be river fighting, I dare say,” says he, yawning; he was a dry, likely-looking chap with blazing red hair and sleepy, humorous eyes.18 “Cutting out, jungle work, ambushes, that sort of thing? Ye-es, well, we know what happens if you rush into it at half-cock – remember how Belcher ripped the bottom out of Samarang on a shoal last year? I’ll have to restow Dido’s ballast, for one thing, and take on a couple of extra launches.”
“I can’t wait for that!” cries Brooke. “I must get to Kuching, for news of this villain Suleiman and to get my people and boats together. I hear Harlequin’s been sighted; I’ll go ahead in her – Hastings will take me when I tell him how fearfully urgent it is. We must run down this scoundrel and free Mrs Flashman without a moment’s delay!”
“You’re sure it’ll be Borneo, then?” says Keppel.
“It has to be!” cried Brooke. “No ship from the south in the last two days has sighted him. Depend upon it, he’ll either run for Maludu or the rivers.”
It was all Greek to me, and sounded horribly active and risky, but everyone deferred to Brooke’s judgement, and next day off he sailed in Harlequin. Because of my wound I was to rest in Singapore until Dido sailed two days later, but perforce I must be down at the quay when Brooke was rowed out with his motley gang by Harlequin’s boat crew. He seized my hand at parting.
“By the time you reach Kuching, we’ll be ready to run up the flag and run out the guns!” cried he. “You’ll see! And don’t fret yourself, old fellow – we shall have your dear lady back safe and sound before you know it. Just you limber up that sword-arm, and between us we’ll give these dogs a bit of your Afghan sauce. Why, in Sarawak we do this sort of thing before breakfast! Don’t we, Paitingi? Eh, Mackenzie?”
I watched them go – Brooke in the stern with his pilot-cap tipped at a rakish angle, laughing and slapping his knee in eagerness; the enormous Paitingi at his elbow, the black-bearded Mackenzie with his medical bag, and the other hard-cases disposed about the boat, with the hideous little Jingo in his loin-cloth nursing his blow-pipe spear. That was the fancy-dress crowd that I was to accompany on what sounded like a most hair-raising piece of madness – it was a dreadful prospect, and on the heels of my apprehension came fierce resentment at the frightful luck that was about to pitch me headlong into the stew again. D--n Elspeth, for a hare-brained, careless, wanton, ogling little slut, and d--n Solomon for a horny thief who hadn’t the decency to be content with women of his own beastly colour, and d--n this officious, bloodthirsty lunatic Brooke – who the d---l was he to go busybodying about uninvited, dragging me into his idiot enterprises? What right had he, and why did everyone defer to him as though he was some mixture of God and the Duke of Wellington?
I found out, the evening Dido sailed, after I had taken my fond farewells – whining and shouting with Morrison, stately and generous with the hospitable Whampoa, and ecstatically frenzied in the last minute of packing with my dear little nurses. I went aboard almost on my hands and knees, as I’ve said, with Stuart helping me, for he had stayed behind to bear me company and execute some business for Brooke. It was while we were at the stern rail of the corvette, watching the Singapore islands sinking black into the fiery sunset sea, that I dropped some chance remark about his crazy commander – as you know, I still had precious little idea who he was, and I must have said so, for Stuart started round, staring at me.
“Who’s J.B.?” he cried. “You can’t mean it! Who’s J.B.? You don’t know? Why, he’s the greatest man in the East, that’s all! You’re not serious – bless me, how long have you been in Singapore?”
“Not long enough, evidently. All I know is that he and you and your … ah, friends … rescued me mighty handy the other night, and that since then he’s very kindly taken charge of operations to do the same for my wife.”
He blessed himself again, heartily, and enlightened me with frightening enthusiasm.
“J.B. – His Royal Highness James Brooke – is the King of Sarawak, that’s who he is. I thought the whole world had heard of the White Raja! Why, he’s the biggest thing in these parts since Raffles – bigger, even. He’s the law, the prophet, the Grand Panjandrum, the tuan besara – the whole kitboodle! He’s the scourge of every pirate and brigand on the Borneo coast – the best fighting seaman since Nelson, for my money – he tamed Sarawak, which was the toughest nest of rebels and head-hunters this side of Papua, he’s its protector, its ruler, and to the natives, its saint! Why, they worship him down yonder – and more power to ’em, for he’s the truest friend, the fairest judge, and the noblest, whitest man in the whole wide world! That’s who J.B. is.”
“My word, I’m glad he happened along,” says I. “I didn’t know we had a colony in – Sarawak, d’you call it?”
“We haven’t. It’s not British soil. J.B. is nominal governor for the Sultan of Brunei – but it’s his kingdom, not Queen Victoria’s. How did he get it? Why, he sailed in there four years ago, after the d-mfool Company Army pensioned him off for overstaying his furlough. He’d bought this brig, the Royalist, you see, with some cash his guv’nor left him, and just set off on his own account.” He laughed, shaking his head. “G-d, we were mad! There were nineteen of us, with one little ship, and six six-pounder guns, and we got a kingdom with it! J.B. delivered the native people from slavery, drove out their oppressors, gave ’em a proper government – and now, with a few little boats, his loyal natives, and those of us who’ve survived, he’s fighting single-handed to drive piracy out of the Islands and make them safe for honest folk.”19
“Very commendable,” says I. “But isn’t that the East India Company’s job – or the navy’s?”
“Bless you, they couldn’t even begin it!” cries he. “There’s barely a British squadron in all these enormous waters – and the pirates are numbered in tens upon tens of thousands. I’ve seen fleets of five hundred praus and bankongs – those are their warboats – cruising together, crammed with fighting men and cannon, and behind them hundreds of miles of coastline in burning ruin – towns wiped out, thousands slaughtered, women carried off as slaves, every peaceful vessel plundered and sunk – I tell you, the Spanish Main was nothing to it! They leave a trail of destruction and torture and abomination wherever they go. They set our navy and the Dutch at defiance, and hold the Islands in terror – they have a slave-market at Sulu where hundreds of human beings are bought and sold daily; even the kings and rajas pay them tribute – when they aren’t pirates themselves. Well, J.B. don’t like it, and he means to put a stop to it.”
“Hold on, though – what can he do, if even the navy’s powerless?”
“He’s J.B.,” says Stuart, simply, with that drunk, smug look you see on a child’s face when his father mends a toy. “Of course, he gets the navy to help – why, we had three navy vessels at Murdu in February, when he wiped out the Sumatra robbers – but his strength is with the honest native peoples – some of ’em were once pirates themselves, and head-hunters, like the Sea Dyaks, until J.B. showed ’em better. He puts spirit into them, bullies and wheedles the rajas, gathers news of the pirates, and when they least expect it, takes his expeditions against their forts and harbours, fights ’em to a standstill, burns their ships, and either makes ’em swear to keep the peace, or else! That’s why everyone in Singapore jumps when he whistles – why, how long d’you think it would have taken them to do anything about your missus – months, years even? But J.B. says “Go!” and don’t they just! And if I’d gone along Beach Road this morning looking for people to bet that J.B. couldn’t rescue her, good as new, and destroy this swine Suleiman Usman – well, I’d not have got a single taker, at a hundred to one. He’ll do it, all right. You’ll see.”
“But why?” says I, without thinking, and he frowned. “I mean,” I added, “he hardly knows me – and he’s never even met my wife – but the way he’s gone about this, you’d think we were – well, his dearest relatives.”
“Well, that’s his way, you know. Anything for a friend – and with a lady involved, of course, that makes it all the more urgent – to him. He’s a bit of a knight-errant, is J.B. Besides, he likes you.”
“What? He don’t even know me.”
“Don’t he, though! Why, I remember when we got the news of the great deeds you’d done at Kabul, J.B. talked of nothing else for days, read all the papers, kept exclaiming over your defence of Piper’s Fort. ‘That’s the man for me!’ he kept saying. ‘By Jingo, what wouldn’t I give to have him out here! We’d see the last pirate out of the China Sea between us!’ Well, now he’s got you – I shouldn’t wonder if he doesn’t move heaven and earth to keep you.”
You can guess how this impressed me. I could see, of course, that J.B. was just the man for the task in hand – if anyone could bring Elspeth off, more or less undamaged, it was probably he, for he seemed to be the same kind of desperate, stick-at-nothing adventurer I’d known in Afghanistan – wild men like Georgie Broadfoot and Sekundar Burnes. The trouble with fellows like those is that they’re d----d dangerous to be alongside; it would be capital if I could arrange it that Brooke went off a-rescuing while I stayed safe in the rear, hallooing encouragement, but my wound was healing nicely, b---t it, and the outlook was disquieting.
It was a question which was still vexing me four days later when the Dido, under sweeps, came gliding over a sea like blue glass to the mouth of the Kuching river, and I saw for the first time those brilliant golden beaches washed with foam, the low green flats of mangrove creeping to the water’s edge among the little islands, the palm-fringed creeks, and in the distant southern haze the mountains of Borneo.
“Paradise!” exclaims Stuart, breathing in the warm air, “and I don’t give a d--n if I never see Dover cliffs again. Look at it – half a million square miles of the loveliest land in the world, unexplored, except for this little corner. Sarawak’s where civilization begins and ends, you know – go a day’s march in yonder” – he pointed towards the mountains – “and if you’re still alive you’ll be among head-hunters who’ve never seen a white man. Ain’t it capital, though?”
I couldn’t say it was. The river, as we went slowly up it, was broad enough, and the land green and fertile, but it had that steamy look that spells fever, and the air was hot and heavy. We passed by several villages, some of them partly built over the water on stilts, with long, primitive thatched houses; the water itself was aswarm with canoes and small boats, manned by squat, ugly, grinning little men like Jingo; I don’t suppose one of them stood more than five feet, but they looked tough as teak. They wore simple loin-cloths, with rings round their knees, and head-cloths; some had black and white feathers in their hair. The women were fairer than the men, although no taller, and decidedly good-looking, in an impudent, pug-nosed way; they wore their hair long, down their backs, and went naked except for kilts, swinging their bums and udders in a way that did your heart good to see. (They couple like stoats, by the way, but only with men of proved bravery. In a country where the usual engagement ring is a human head, it follows that you have to be bloodthirsty in order to get your muttons.)
“Sea Dyaks,” says Stuart. “The bravest, cheeriest folk you’ll ever see – fight like tigers, cruel as the grave, but loyal as Swiss. Listen to ’em jabber – that’s the coast lingua franca, part Malay, but with Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English thrown in. Amiga sua!” cries he, waving to one of the boatmen – that, I learned, means “my friend”, which gives you some notion.
Sarawak, as Stuart said, might be the civilized corner of Borneo, but as we drew closer to Kuching you could see that it was precious like an armed camp. There was a huge log boom across the river, which had to be swung open so that Dido could warp through, and on the low bluffs either side there were gun emplacements, with cannon peeping through the earthworks; there were cannon, too, on the three strange craft at anchor inside the boom – they were like galleys, with high stern and forecastles, sixty or seventy feet long, with their great oars resting in the water like the legs of some monstrous insect.
“War praus,” cries Stuart. “By Jove, there’s something up – those are Lundu boats. J. B.’s mustering his forces with a vengeance!”
We rounded a bend, and came in sight of Kuching proper; it wasn’t much of a place, just a sprawling native town, with a few Swiss cottages on the higher ground, but the river was jammed with ships and boats of every description – at least a score of praus and barges, light sailing cutters, launches, canoes, and even a natty little paddle-steamer. The bustle and noise were tremendous, and as Dido dropped anchor in mid-stream she was surrounded by swarms of little boats, from one of which the enormous figure of Paitingi Ali came swinging up to the deck, to present himself to Keppel, and then come over to us.
“Aye, weel,” says he, in that astonishing accent which sounded so oddly with his occasional pious Muslim exclamations. “He was right again. The Praise tae the One.”
“What d’ye mean?” cries Stuart.
“A spy-boat came in frae Budraddin yesterday. A steam-brig – which cannae be any other than the Sulu Queen – put into Batang Lupar four days ago, and went upriver. Budraddin’s watching the estuary, but there’s nae fear she’ll come out again, for the word along the coast is that the great Suleiman Usman is back, and has gone up tae Fort Linga tae join Sharif Sahib. He’s in there, a’ richt; a’ we have tae do is gang in an’ tak’ him.”
“Huzza!” roars Stuart, capering and seizing his hand. “Good old J.B.! Borneo he said it would be, and Borneo it is!” He swung to me. “You hear that, Flashman – it means we know where your lady is, and that kidnapping rascal, too! J.B. guessed exactly right – now do you believe that he’s the greatest man in the east?”
“Will ye tell me how he does it?” growled Paitingi. “If I didnae ken he was a guid Protestant I’d say he was in league wi’ Shaitan. Come awa’ – he’s up at the hoose, gey pleased wi’ himsel’. Bismillah! Perhaps when he’s told you in person he’ll be less insufferable.”
But when we went ashore to Brooke’s house, “The Grove”, as it was called, the great man hardly referred to Paitingi’s momentous news – I discovered later that this was delicacy on his part; he didn’t want to distress me by even talking about Elspeth’s plight. Instead, when we had been conducted to that great shady bungalow on its eminence, commanding a view of the teeming river and landing-places, he sat us down with glasses of arrack punch, and began to talk, of all things, about – roses.
“I’m goin’ to make ’em grow here if it kills me,” says he. “Imagine that slope down to the river below us, covered with English blooms; think of warm evenings in the dusk, and the perfume filling the verandah. By George, if I could raise Norfolk apples as well, that would be perfect – great, red beauties like the ones that grow on the roadside by North Walsham, what? You can keep your mangoes and paw-paws, Stuart – what wouldn’t I give for an honest old apple, this minute! But I might manage the roses, one day.” He jumped up. “Come and see my garden, Flashman – I promise you won’t see another like it in Borneo, at any rate!”
So he took me round his place, pointing out his jasmine and sundals and the rest, exclaiming about their night scents, and suddenly snatching up a trowel and falling on some weeds. “These confounded Chinese gardeners!” cries he. “I’d be better served by Red Indians, I believe. But I suppose it’s asking too much to expect,” he cries, trowelling away, “that a people as filthy, ugly, and ungraceful as the Chinks should have any feeling for flowers. Mind you, they’re industrious and cheery, but that ain’t the same.”
He chattered on, pointing out how his house was built carefully on palm piles to defy the bugs and damp, and telling me how he had come to design it. “We’d had the deuce of a scrap with Lundu head-hunters just across the river yonder, and were licking our wounds in a dirty little kampong, waiting for ’em to attack again – it was evening, and we were out of water altogether, and pretty used up, down to our last ounces of powder, too – and I thought to myself, what you need, J.B. my boy, is an easy chair and an English newspaper and a vase of roses on the table. It seemed such a splendid notion – and I resolved that I’d make myself a house, with just those things, so that wherever I went in Borneo, it would always be here to return to.” He waved at the house. “And there she is – all complete, except for the roses. I’ll get those in time.”
It was true enough; his big central room, with the bedrooms arranged round it, and an opening on to his front verandah, was for all the world like a mixture of drawing-room and gun-room at home, except that the furniture was mostly bamboo. There were easy chairs, and old copies of The Times and Post neatly stacked, couches, polished tables, an Axminster, flowers in vases, and all manner of weapons and pictures on the walls.
“If ever I want to forget wars and pirates and fevers and ong-ong-ongs – that’s my own word for anything Malay, you know – I just sit down and read about how it rained in Bath last year, or how some rascal was jailed for poaching at Exeter Assizes,” says he. “Even potato prices in Lancashire will do – oh, I say … I’d meant to put that away …”
I’d stopped to look at a miniature on the table, of a most peachy blonde girl, and Brooke jumped up and reached out towards it. I seemed to know the face. “Why,” says I, “that’s Angie Coutts, surely?”
“You know her?” cries he, and he was pink to the gills, and right out of countenance for once. “I have never had the honour of meeting her,” he went on, in a hushed, stuffed way, “but I have long admired her, for her enlightened opinions, and unsparing championship of worthy causes.” He looked at the miniature like a contemplative frog. “Tell me – is she as … as … well – ah – as her portrait suggests?”
“She’s a stunner, if that’s what you mean,” says I, for like every other grown male in London I, too, had admired little Angie, though not entirely for her enlightened opinions – more for the fact that she had a superb complexion, tits like footballs, and two million in the bank, really. I’d taken a loving fumble at her myself, during blind-man’s-buff at a party in Stratton Street, but she’d simply stared straight ahead of her and dislocated my thumb. Wasteful little prude.20
“Perhaps, one of these days, when I return to England, you will present me,” says he, gulping, and shovelled her picture into a drawer. Well, well, thinks I, who’d have thought it: the mad pirate-killer and rose-fancier, spoony on Angie Coutts’s picture – I’ll bet that every time he contemplates it the local Dyak lasses have to scamper for cover.
I must have said something to this effect, in my tasteful way, that same evening to Stuart, no doubt with my lewd Flashy nudge and leer, but he was such an innocent that he just shook his head and sighed deeply.
“Miss Burdett-Coutts?” says he. “Poor old J.B. He has told me of his deep regard for her, although he’s a very secret man about such things. I dare say they’d make a splendid match, but it can’t be, of course – even if he realized his ambition to meet her.”
“Why not?” says I. “He’s a likely chap, and just the kind to fire a romantic piece like young Angie. Why, they’d go like duck and green peas.” Kindly old match-maker Flash, you see.
“Impossible,” says Stuart, and then he went red in the face and hesitated. “You see – it’s a shocking thing – but J.B. can never marry – it wouldn’t do, at all.”
Hollo, thinks I, he ain’t one of the Dick’s hatband brigade, surely? – I’d not have thought it.
“It is never mentioned, of course,” says Stuart, uncomfortably, “but it is as well you should know – in case, in conversation, you unwittingly made any reference that might … well, be wounding. It was in Burma, you see, when he was in the army. He received an … incapacitating injury in battle. It was put about that it was a bullet in the lung … but in fact … well, it wasn’t.”
“Good G-d, you don’t mean to say,” cries I, genuinely appalled, “that he got his knocker shot off?”
“Let’s not think about it,” says he, but I can tell you I went about wincing for the rest of the evening. Poor old White Raja – I mean, I’m a callous chap enough, but there are some tragedies that truly wring the heart. Mad about that delectable little bouncer Angie Coutts, despot of a country abounding with the juiciest of dusky flashtails just itching for him to exercise the droit de seigneur, and there he was with a broken firing-pin. I don’t know when I’ve been more deeply moved. Still, if J.B. was the first man in to rescue Elspeth, she’d be safe enough.21
It was an appropriate thought, for that same evening, after dinner at The Grove, we held the council at which Brooke announced his plan of operations. It followed a dinner as formal in its way as any I’ve ever attended – but that was Brooke all over: when we had our pegs on the verandah beforehand he was laughing and sky-larking, playing leap-frog with Stuart and Crimble and even the dour Paitingi, the bet being that he could jump over them one after another with a glass in one hand, and not spill a drop – but when the bell sounded, everyone quieted down, and filed silently into his great room.
I can still see it, Brooke at the head of the table in his big armchair, stiff in his white collar and carefully-tied black neckercher, with black coat and ruffled cuffs, the eager brown face grave for once, and the only thing out of place his untidy black curls – he could never get ’em to lie straight. On one side of him was Keppel, in full fig of uniform dress coat and epaulette, with his best black cravat, looking sleepy and solemn; Stuart and I in the cleanest ducks we could find; Charlie Wade, Keppel’s lieutenant; Paitingi Ali, very brave in a tunic of dark plaid trimmed with gold and with a great crimson sash, and Crimble, another of Brooke’s lieutenants, who absolutely had a frock coat and fancy weskit. There was a Malay steward behind each chair, and over in the corner, silent but missing nothing, the squint-faced Jingo; even he had exchanged his loin-cloth for a silver sarong, with hornbill feathers in his hair and decorating the shaft of his sumpitanb standing handy against the wall. I never saw him without it, or the little bamboo quiver of his beastly darts.
I don’t remember much of the meal, except that the food was good and the wine execrable, and that conversation consisted of Brooke lecturing interminably; like most active men, he had all the makings of a thoroughgoing bore.
“There shan’t be a missionary in Borneo if I can help it,” I remember him saying, “for there are only two kinds, bad ones and Americans. The bad ones ram Christianity down the natives’ throats and tell them their own gods are false—”
“Which they are,” says Keppel quietly.
“Of course, but a gentleman doesn’t tell ’em so,” says Brooke. “The Yankees have the right notion; they devote themselves to medicine and education, and don’t talk religion or politics. And they don’t treat natives as inferiors – that’s where we’ve gone wrong in India,” says he, wagging his finger at me, as though I had framed British policy. “We’ve made them conscious of their inferiority, which is a great folly. After all, if you’ve a weaker younger brother, you encourage him to think he can run as fast as you can, or jump as far without a race, don’t you? He knows he can’t, but that don’t matter. In the same way, natives know they’re inferior, but they’ll love you all the better if they think you are unconscious of it.”
“Well, you may be right,” says Charlie Wade, who was Irish, “but I don’t for the life of me see how you can ever expect ’em to grow up, at that rate, or achieve any self-respect at all.”
“You can’t,” says Brooke briskly. “No Asiatic is fit to govern, anyway.”
“And Europeans are?” says Paitingi, snorting.
“Only to govern Asiatics,” says Brooke. “A glass of wine with you, Flashman. But I’ll give you this, Paitingi – you can rule Asiatics only by living among them. You cannot govern them from London, or Paris, or Lisbon—”
“Aye, but Dundee, now?” says Paitingi, stroking his red beard, and when the roar of laughter had died down Brooke cries:
“Why, you old heathen, you have never been nearer to Dundee than Port Said! Observe,” says he to me, “that in old Paitingi you have the ultimate flowering of a mixture of east and west – an Arab-Malay father and a Caledonian mother. Ah, the cruel fate of the half-caste – he has spent fifty years trying to reconcile the Kirk with the Koran.”
“They’re no’ that different,” says Paitingi, “an’ at least they’re baith highly superior tae the Book o’ Common Prayer.”
I was interested to see the way they railed at each other, as only very close friends do. Brooke obviously had an immense respect for Paitingi Ali; however, now that the talk had touched on religion, he began to hold forth again on an interminable prose about how he had recently written a treatise against Article 90 of the “Oxford Tracts”, whatever they were, which lasted to the end of the meal. Then, with due solemnity, he proposed the Queen, which was drunk sitting down, Navy fashion, and while the rest of us talked and smoked, Brooke went through a peculiar little ceremony which, I suppose, explained better than anything else the hold he had on his native subjects.
All through the meal, a most curious thing had been happening. While the courses and wine had come with all due ceremony, and we had been buffing in, I’d noticed that every few minutes a Malay, or Dyak, or half-breed would come into the room, touch Brooke’s hand as they passed his chair, and then go to squat near the wall by Jingo. No one paid them any notice; they seemed to be all sorts, from a near-naked beggarly rascal to a well-dressed Malay in gold sarong and cap, but they were all armed – I learned later that it was a great insult to come into the White Raja’s presence without your krees, which is the strange, wavy-bladed knife of the people.
In any event, while the rest of us gassed, Brooke turned his chair, beckoned each suppliant in turn, and talked with him quietly in Malay. One after another they came to hunker down beside him, putting their cases or telling their tales, while he listened, leaning forward with elbows on knees, nodding attentively. Then he would pronounce, quietly, and they would touch hands again and go; the rest of us might as well not have been there. When I asked Stuart about it later, he said: “Oh, that’s J.B. ruling Sarawak. Simple, ain’t it?”22
When the last native had gone Brooke sat in a reverie for a moment or two, and then swung abruptly to the table.
“No singing tonight,” says he. “Business. Let’s have that map, Crimble.” We crowded round, the lamps were turned up, shining on the ring of sunburned faces under the wreath of cigar smoke, and Brooke tapped the table. I felt my belly muscles tightening.
“We know what’s to do, gentlemen,” cries he, “and I’ll answer that the task is one that strikes a spark in the heart of every one of us. A fair and gentle lady, the beloved wife of one here, is in the hands of a bloody pirate; she is to be saved, and he destroyed. By God’s grace, we know where the quarry lies, not sixty miles from where we sit, on the Batang Lupar, the greatest lair of robbers in these Islands, save Mindanao itself. Look at it” – his finger stabbed the map – “first, Sharif Jaffir and his slaver fleet, at Fort Linga; beyond him, the great stronghold of Sharif Sahib at Patusan; farther on, at Undup, the toughest nut of all – the fortress of the Skrang pirates under Sharif Muller. Was ever a choicer collection of villains on one river? Add to ’em now the arch-d---l, Suleiman Usman, who has stolen away Mrs Flashman in dastardly fashion. She is the key to his vile plan, gentlemen, for he knows we cannot leave her in his clutches an hour longer than we must.” He gave my shoulder a manly squeeze; everyone else was carefully avoiding my eye. “He realizes that chivalry will not permit us to wait. You know him, Flashman; is this not how his scheming mind will reason?”
I didn’t doubt it, and said so. “He’s made a fortune in the City, too, and plays a d----d dirty game of single-wicket,” I added, and Brooke nodded sympathetically.
“He knows I dare not delay, even if it means going after him with only the piecemeal force I have here – fifty praus and two thousand men, a third of which I must leave to garrison Kuching. Even so, Usman knows I must take at least a week to prepare – a week in which he can muster his praus and savages, outnumbering us ten to one, and make ready his ambushes along the Lupar, confident that we’ll stumble into them half-armed and ill-prepared—”
“Stop it, before I start wishin’ I was on their side,” mutters Wade, and Brooke laughed in his conceited fashion and threw back his black curls.
“Why, he’ll wipe us out to the last man!” cries he. “That’s his beastly scheme. That,” he smiled complacently round at us, “is what Suleiman Usman thinks.”
Paitingi sighed. “But, of course, he’s wrong, the puir heathen,” says he with heavy sarcasm. “Ye’ll tell us how.”
“You may wager the Bank to a tinker’s dam he’s wrong!” cries Brooke, his face alive with swank and excitement. “He expects us in a week – he shall have us in two days! He expects us with two-thirds of our strength – well, we’ll show him all of it! I’ll strip Kuching of every man and gun and leave it defenceless – I’ll stake everything on this throw!” He beamed at us, bursting with confidence. “Surprise, gentlemen – that’s the thing! I’ll catch the rascal napping before he’s laid his infernal toils! What d’you say?”
I know what I’d have said, if I’d been talking just then. I’d never heard such lunacy in my life, and neither had the others by the look of them. Paitingi snorted.
“Ye’re mad! It’ll no’ do.”
“I know, old fellow,” grins Brooke. “What then?”
“Ye’ve said it yersel’! There’s a hundred mile o’ river between Skrang creek and the sea, every yard o’ it hotchin’ wi’ pirates, slavers, nata-hutan,c an’ heid-hunters by the thousand, every side-stream crawlin’ wi’ war-praus an’ bankongs, tae say nothin’ o’ the forts! Surprise, says you? By Eblis, I ken who’ll be surprised! We’ve done oor share o’ river-fightin’, but this—” he waved a great red hand. “Withoot a well-fitted expedition in strength – man, it’s fatal folly.”
“He’s right, J.B.,” says Keppel. “Anyway, even the poor force we’ve got couldn’t be ready in two days—”
“Yes, it can, though. In one, if necessary.”
“Well, even then – you might catch Fort Linga unprepared, but after that they’ll be ready for you upriver.”
“Not at the speed I’ll move!” cries Brooke. “The messenger of disaster from Linga to Patusan will have us on his heels! We’ll carry all before us, all the way to Skrang if need be!”
“But Kuching?” Stuart protested. “Why, the Balagnini or those beastly Lanun could sweep it up while our back was turned.”
“Never!” Brooke was exultant. “They won’t know it’s naked! And suppose they did – why, we’d just have to begin all over again, wouldn’t we? You talk about the odds against us on the Lupar – were they a whit better at Seribas, or Murdu? Were they any better when you and I, George, took all Sarawak with six guns and a leaky pleasure-yacht? I tell you, gentlemen, I can have this thing over and done in a fortnight! D’you doubt me? Have I ever failed, and will I fail now, when there is a poor, weak creature crying out for rescue, and I, a Briton, hear that cry? When I have the stout hearts and good keels that will do the thing, and crush this swarm of hornets, too, before they can scatter on their accursed errands? What? I tell you, all the Queen’s ships and all the Queen’s men could not bring such a chance together again,23 and I mean to take it!”
I’d never seen it before, although I’ve seen it more times than I care to count since – one man, mad as a hatter and drunk with pride, sweeping sane heads away against their better judgement. Chinese Gordon could do it, and Yakub Beg the Kirghiz; so could J. E. B. Stuart, and that almighty maniac George Custer. They and Brooke could have formed a club. I can see him still; erect, head thrown back, eyes blazing, like the worst kind of actor mouthing the Agincourt speech to a crowd of yokels in a tent theatre in the backwoods. I don’t believe he convinced them – Stuart and Crimble, perhaps, but not Keppel and the others; certainly not Paitingi. But they couldn’t resist him, or the force that beat out of him. He was going to have his way, and they knew it. They stood silent; Keppel, I think, was embarrassed. And then Paitingi says:
“Aye. Ye’ll want me to have charge o’ the spy-boats, I suppose?”
That settled it, and at once Brooke quieted down, and they set to earnestly to discuss ways and means, while I sat back contemplating the horror of the whole thing, and wondering how I could weasel out of it. Plainly they were going to catastrophe, lugging me along with them, and not a thing to be done about it. I turned over a dozen schemes in my mind, from feigning insanity to running away; finally, when all but Brooke had hurried off to begin the preparations which were to take them all night and the following day, I had a feeble shot at turning him from his hare-brained purpose. Perhaps, I suggested diffidently, it might be possible to ransom Elspeth; I’d heard of such things being done among the Oriental pirates, and old Morrison was stiff with blunt which he’d be glad …
“What?” cries Brooke, his brow darkening. “Treat with these scoundrels? Never! I should not contemplate such – ah, but I see what it is!” He came over all compassionate, and laid a hand on my arm. “You are fearful for your dear one’s safety, when battle is joined. You need have no such fear, old fellow; no harm will come to her.”
Well, it was beyond me how he could guarantee that, but then he explained, and I give you my word that this is what he said. He sat me down in my chair and poured me a glass of arrack first.
“It is natural enough, Flashman, that you should believe this pirate’s motives to be of the darkest kind … where your wife is concerned. Indeed, from what I have heard of her grace and charm of person, they are such as might well excite … ah, that is, they might awaken – well, unworthy passion – in an unworthy person, that is.” He floundered a bit, and took a pull at his glass, wondering how to discuss the likelihood of her being rogered without causing me undue distress. At last he burst out:
“He won’t do it! – I mean, that is – I cannot believe she will be … ill-used, in any way, if you follow me. I am confident that she is but a pawn in a game which he has planned with Machiavellian cunning, using her as a bait to destroy me. That,” says this swollen-headed lunatic smugly, “is his true purpose, for he and his kind can know no safety while I live. His design is not principally against her, of that I am certain. For one thing, he is married already, you know. Oh, yes, I have gleaned much information in the past few days, and it’s true – five years ago he took to wife the daughter of the Sultan of Sulu, and while Muslims are not, of course, monogamous,” he went on earnestly, “there is no reason to suppose that their union was not a … a happy one.” He took a turn round the room, while I gaped, stricken speechless. “So I’m sure your dear lady is perfectly safe from any … any … anything like that. Anything …” he waved his glass, sloshing arrack broadcast “… anything awful, you know.”
Well, that is what he said, as I hope to die. I couldn’t credit my ears. For a moment I wondered if having his love-muscle shot off had affected his brain; then I realized that, in his utterly daft way, he was simply talking all this rubbish to reassure me. Possibly he thought I was so distraught that I’d be ready to believe anything, even that a chap with one wife would never think of bulling another. Maybe he even believed it himself.
“She will be restored to you …” he searched for a suitable word, and found one, “unblemished, you may be sure. Indeed, I am certain that her preservation must be his first concern, for he must know what a terrific retribution will follow if any harm should come to her, either in the violence of battle or … in any other way. And after all,” says he, apparently quite struck with the thought, “he may be a pirate, but he has been educated as an English gentleman, I cannot believe that he is dead to all feelings of honour. Whatever he has become – here, let me fill your glass, old chap – we must remember that there was a time when he was, well … one of us. I think you can take comfort in that thought, what?”
[Extract from the diary of Mrs Flashman, August—, 1844]
I am now Beyond Hope, and Utterly Desolate in my Captivity, like the Prisoner of Chillon, except that he was in a dungeon and I am in a steamship, which I am sure is a thousand times worse, for at least in a dungeon one stays still, and is not conscious of being carried away far beyond the reach of Loving Friends! A week have I been in durance – nay, it seems like a Year!! I can only pine my lost love, and await in Terror whatever Fate is in store for me at the hands of my heartless abductor. My knees tremble at the thought and my heart fails me – how enviable does the lot of the Prisoner of Chillon seem (see Above), for no such Dread hung over his captivity, and at least he had mice to play with, laying their wrinkly wee noses in his hand in sympathy. Although to be sure I don’t like mice, but no more than I don’t like the Odious Native who brings my food, which I cannot endure to eat anyway, although there have been some Pleasant Fruits added to my diet the last day or two, when we came in sight of land as I saw from my porthole. Is this strange and hostile tropic shore to be the Scene of my Captivity? Shall I be sold on Indian Soil? Oh, dear Father – and kind, noble, generous H., thou art lost to me forever!!
Yet even such loss is no worse than the Suspense which wracks my brain. Since the first dreadful day of my abduction I have not seen Don S., which at first I supposed was because he was so a prey to Shame and Remorse, that he could not look me in the eye. I pictured him, Restless on his Prow, torn by pangs of conscience, gnawing at his nails and Oblivious of his sailors’ requests for directions, as the vessel plow’ed on heedless over the waves. Oh, how well deserved his Torment! – and yet it is extremely strange, after his Passionate Protestations, that he should Restrain himself for seven whole days from seeing me, the Object of his Madness. I don’t understand it, for I don’t believe he feels Remorse at all, and the affairs of his boat cannot take all his time, surely! Why, then, does the Cruel Wretch not come to gloat over his Helpless Prey, and Jeer at her sorry condition, for my white taffeta is now quite soiled, and so oppressively hot in the confines of my cabin, that I have perforce discarded it in favour of some of the native dresses called sarongas, which have been provided by the creeping little Chinese woman who waits upon me, a sallow creature, and not a word of English, tho’ not as handless as some I’ve known. I have a saronga of red silk which is, I think, the most becoming, and another in blue and gold embroidery, quite pretty, but of course they are very simple and slight, and would not be the thing at all for European Wear, except in déshabillé. But to these am I reduced, and the left heel of my shoe broken, so I must put them both off, and no proper articles for toilette, and my hair a positive fright. Don S. is a Brute and Beast, first to wrench me away, and then so heartlessly to neglect me in this sorry condition!
Post merid P.M.
He came at last, and I am distraught! While I was repairing as best I might the ravages slight disorders in my appearance which my cruel confinement has wrought, and trying how my saronga (the red one) might fold most elegantly – for it is an excellent rule that in all Circumstances a Gentlewoman should make the best of things, and strive to present a collected appearance – I was of a sudden Aware of his Presence. To my Startled Protest, he replied with an insinuating compliment on how well my saronga became me, and such a Look of ardent yearning that I at once regretted my poor discarded taffeta, fearing the base ardour that the sight of me in Native Garb might kindle in him. To my instant and repeated demands that I be taken Home at once, and my Upbraidings for his scandalous usuage and neglect of me, he replied with the utmost composure and odiously solicitous inquiries for my Comfort! I replied with icy disdain. “Restore me instantly to my family, and keep your tiresome comforts!” He received this rebuff quite unabashed, and said I must put such hopes from my mind forever.
“What!” I cried, “you will deny me even some suitable clothing, and proper toilet articles, and a change of bed linen every day, and a proper variety in diet, instead of roast pork, of which I am utterly tired, and a thorough airing and cleaning of my accommodation?” “No, no,” he protested, “these things you shall have, and whatever else your heart desires, but as for returning to your family, it is out of the question, for the die is cast!” “We shall see about that, my lad!” I cried, masking the Terror which his Grim and Unrelenting manner inspired in my Quaking Bosom, and presenting a Bold Front, at which to my astonishment he dropped to his knees, and taking my hand – but with every sign of respect – he spoke in so moving and pleading a manner, protesting his worship, and vowing that when I returned his Love, he would make me a Queen Indeed, and my lightest whim instantly obeyed, that I could not but be touched. Seeing me weaken, he spoke earnestly of the Kindness and Companionship which we had shared, at which, despising my own Frailty, I was moved to tears.
“Why, oh, why, Don S., did you have to spoil it all by this thoughtless and ungenteel behaviour, and after such a jolly cruise?” I cried. “It is most disobliging of you!” “I could not bear the torture of seeing you possessed by another!” cried he. I asked, “Why, whom who do you mean, Don S.?” “Your husband!” cries he, “but, by h----n, he shall be your husband no longer!” and springing up, he cried that my Spirit was as matchless as my Beauty, which he praised in terms that I cannot bring myself to repeat, although I daresay the compliment was kindly intended, and adding fiercely that he should win me, at whatever cost. Despite my struggles and reproaches, and feeble cries for an Aid which I knew could not be forthcoming, he repeatedly subjected me to the assault of his salutes upon my lips, so fervently that I fainted into a Merciful Oblivion for between five and ten minutes, after which, by the Intervention of Heaven, he was called on deck by one of his sailors, leaving me, with repeated oaths of his Fidelity, in a state of perturbed delicacy.
There is still no sign of pursuit by H., which I had so wildly hoped for. Am I, then, forgotten by those dearest to me, and is there no hope indeed? Am I doomed to be carried off forever, or will Don S. yet repent the intemperate regard for me – nay, for my mere Outward Show – which drove him to this inconsiderate folly? I pray it may be so, and hourly I lament – nay, I curse – that Fairness of Form and Feature of which I was once so vain. Ah, why could I not have been born safe and plain like my dearest sister Agnes, or our Mary, who is even less favoured, altho’ to be sure her complection is none too bad, or …………d Oh, sweet sisters three, gone beyond hope of recall! Could you but know, and pity me in my affliction! Where is H.? Don S. has sent down a great posy of flowers to my cabin, jungle blossoms, pretty but quite gaudy.
[End of extract, which passes belief for shamelessness, hypocrisy, and unwarranted conceit! – G. de R.]
a Great lord.
b Blowpipe.
c “Wood devils”, i.e. users of the sumpitan.
d At this point a heavy deletion of two lines occurs in the manuscript, doubtless to excise some unflattering reference to Lady Flashman’s third sister, Grizel de Rothschild, who edited the journal.