The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (101 page)

Your lordship has made an elliptical reference to events that may or may not have taken place in Shishan before the Boxer uprising, and you remarked how embarrassing it would be for Her Majesty's Government if it were to be implicated in any unauthorised dealings between British and Japanese agents of any kind.

‘We're getting to the nub of it now, are we?' The blue eyes glanced up from the page.

‘Yes, this is the passage I would like you to look at with close attention,' said Pritchett.

I am clearly given to understand that the Japanese Government would be equally embarrassed, if not more so, if such hypothetical proceedings were to come to light.

‘I bet they would,' grunted the man.

I might mention that recently I was informed by my counterpart in the Japanese Legation that a report has been formally filed to their War Office stating that a quantity of field guns, machine-guns, howitzers, and other armaments from their arsenal in Tientsin disappeared during the recent hostilities; there is a convincing explanation attached of how these were captured when their position was temporarily overrun by Chinese forces; indeed, this is the version of events likely to appear in the official war histories. You may also be interested to know that one of their erstwhile military attachés, Colonel Taro Hideyoshi, after having received a medal from his Emperor for his courageous conduct during the siege, has since been reassigned to a post on the imperial staff in Tokyo. If any papers or promissory notes existed in his possession, they were utterly destroyed when his quarters in the Japanese Legation were consumed by fire during the fighting. I am confident that Her Majesty's Government faces no danger of embarrassing revelations from the Japanese.

Your lordship will already have heard Russian reports that the Mandarin of Shishan is dead, apparently murdered by one of his underlings as he attempted to escape the city after a disagreement with his Boxer confederates. It is presumed that the motive for his murder was robbery. He had apparently been fleeing with a large quantity of gold, which has since disappeared. Most of his militia were killed during an encounter with the Boxers as they took flight. Their commander, Major Lin, who might have been involved in any gunrunning transaction, had one really been proposed, is missing, presumed killed with his men. Had these men survived they would no doubt have been tried and condemned for their involvement in the unspeakable atrocities that occurred in that town—as you know, the whole foreign community was beheaded at the Mandarin's order. It would certainly have been embarrassing had it been proved that any purported agent of ours had ever had dealings with such criminals, so it is perhaps providential that they received their just deserts without the necessity of a public trial.

That leaves the matter of our own supposed agent.

‘You end it there,' said the man, letting the pages drop on the table. ‘Pity, I would have liked to have read your comments on “our supposed agent”. Is he in line for an imperial decoration too?'

‘I think not,' said Pritchett. ‘In the circumstances.'

‘So I'm to be thrown to the wolves, am I? It wouldn't be for the first time,' said Henry Manners.

‘I'm hoping that we can manage things so that there aren't any wolves,' said Pritchett. ‘As far as Her Majesty's Government is concerned you were working for the China railways. There shouldn't be anything to connect you with us in any way.'

‘There is the small matter of the arms cache and the Mandarin's gold,' said Manners. ‘And my arrival in Tientsin did not exactly pass unnoticed.'

Pritchett managed a cold smile. The account of Henry Manners's escape from the notorious massacre in Shishan, driving a train with his Chinese concubines shovelling coal, was not only the stuff of legend but had become embroidered in every retelling.

‘Yes, Sir Claude was not very pleased when he heard about that episode,' said Pritchett. ‘Nor is he pleased, by the way, by the accounts of what you and your friend, B. L. Simpson of Customs, have been getting up to in the last few weeks. In our morning meeting he was discussing the reports of your “organised looting on a scale open only to those who can speak Chinese”. I believe that those were his words. He was considering drawing up a warrant for your arrests. I persuaded him that in your case that may not be wise, but you might warn Simpson about it.'

‘I'm obliged to you,' said Manners. ‘Well, he's not changed, has he? Still the schoolmaster, I see.'

His eyes flickered towards a side table on which a large blue and white pot was standing. ‘Bought that in the market, did you?' he asked. ‘Or at one of the recent auctions? Looks very fine to me. Imperial quality, I would have said.'

Pritchett coughed, irritated by the red flush he felt on his cheeks. Quickly he changed the subject. ‘How did you hurt your leg?'

‘Bit of blazing building fell on it, actually. In a
hutong
. Don't worry, it wasn't in the British sector. May have a game leg for life, though.'

‘I'm sorry to hear it. I hope that whatever you were doing when it happened was worth the while. You're quite healed from your other wound?'

‘Pains me from time to time.'

‘You're lucky to be alive.'

‘If that bullet had gone an inch either way I'd be dead now. As it was, I bled rather a lot. Lucky that old muleteer of mine found me when I was unconscious and bound me up. Bloody good fellow, Lao Zhao. He deserves that pension I made you give him. If it hadn't been for him I couldn't possibly have got the train going.'

‘It wasn't the women, then, who helped you?'

‘The Mandarin's wives? You must be joking. They stayed at the back and wailed. No, it was Lao Zhao and Fan Yimei. They saved me. Amazing, really. They drove that train for two days, with me slipping in and out of unconsciousness on the tender.'

‘Fan Yimei's the Major's concubine? Your—housekeeper now?'

‘For the moment,' said Manners, looking him levelly in the eye.

‘And she's to be trusted?'

‘Without question,' said Manners, a hardness coming into his tone.

‘I'm sorry. I had to ask. As you say, there is the matter of the gold, and the guns.'

‘She knows nothing about the guns.'

‘But she knows where the gold is?'

‘Of course. She buried it. She and Lao Zhao. In fact, it was she who worked out what had to be done when she saw the first Russian patrol on the horizon. She got Lao Zhao to stop the train. They went off together and buried the boxes, and we steamed on again before the Russians could catch up with us. They left me sleeping all through this. Actually, I think I was delirious at the time.'

‘So you don't know yourself where the gold is buried?'

‘I didn't say that, Pritchett. I know exactly where the gold is buried. I also know where the guns are. And I can vouch for both Fan Yimei and Lao Zhao. They're entirely to be trusted.'

‘I'm pleased to hear it,' said Pritchett, following a long pause. ‘It's your problem now, after all, not mine.'

‘Come again?' said Manners. ‘Surely you're ultimately accountable for the return of the guns and gold.'

‘Her Majesty's Government knows nothing of any guns or gold. I thought that would have been quite clear to you from that rather tortuous little memorandum of mine.' He paused, stroking the little moustache that he now sported. ‘In fact,' he murmured, ‘I'll go on to say that Her Majesty's Government does not really wish to know you, Manners, and would certainly not be interested to hear about any nefarious, and probably treasonous, activities you may or may not have been engaged in, entirely on your own account, while you were in Shishan. Sir Claude MacDonald himself may, in the past, have taken a personal interest in you in consideration of your titled father, but I fear that your notorious, not to say possibly criminal, activities have recently tried his patience, and I am formally warning you that your presence in our Legation is unlikely to be welcomed in the future.'

‘Well, that was quite a speech,' murmured Manners. ‘What
do
you want me to do with the guns and gold, then?'

‘What guns? What gold?' There was a steely glint in Pritchett's eyes.

‘I see,' said Manners. ‘I'm being given my notice with a golden handshake? A very big handshake if I can find a way to retrieve it.'

Pritchett said nothing.

‘I suppose that's very generous of you,' said Manners.

‘There is a condition,' said Pritchett quietly.

‘Silence?'

‘Silence. Discretion. Nothing said now. Nothing said in the future. Nothing that might ever bring any embarrassment to Lord Salisbury or our government. I am proposing that my report will read that we did not have an agent in Shishan, and that we never at any time had dealings with the authorities there, either officially or unofficially, in any capacity whatsoever. Any actions of yours that may subsequently come to light were performed entirely in the spirit of free enterprise. Do you agree?'

‘Do I agree to be bribed with a fortune to keep my silence? Of course I'll agree. You're giving me the means to become a very wealthy man.'

‘I had assumed that you were already a wealthy man after your looting of the Forbidden City.'

Manners drummed the table with his fingers, his look abstracted. ‘You realise,' he said, after a moment's thought, ‘that Dr Airton suspected I was negotiating with the Mandarin?'

‘Dr Airton's dead, isn't he?' said Pritchett icily. ‘Did you not tell me that he and his family lost themselves in the Black Hills? We've made exhaustive enquiries with the Russians and nothing has been heard of them. If by a miracle they had survived I am sure that we would have known about it. It appears that no miracle happened.'

‘You've—you've made such enquiries?' There was a sudden look of anxiety on Manners's face.

‘Exhaustive enquiries,' said Pritchett. ‘Why? Disappointed you can't get back at the old sawbones for going off and leaving you for dead?'

Manners ignored the jibe. ‘You've heard nothing, you say?'

‘I don't think that you have any need for worry in that quarter, Manners. Nobody could have survived in that wilderness. Your secret's quite…' He paused, noticing the haggard expression on Henry's face. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. His voice had become extraordinarily gentle. ‘I had forgotten. The Delamere girl. I had heard that you and she … I'm sorry. I quite misunderstood your concern. Forgive me … Yes, it's quite a shame…' He lapsed into silence. Then, ‘Of course,' he added, ‘we haven't given up all hope. Maybe in some outlying village, which the Russians have not yet reached … although, that said, there can't be many avenues that—'

‘Write your damned memo,' said Henry, reaching for his crutches.

‘Listen, if there's anything I can do…' said Pritchett, also rising.

Henry shook off his helping hand. He turned on his crutches by the door. ‘Just keep searching. Find out what happened to them.'

He left.

Pritchett sat for a long while tapping his pen on the table. There was a thoughtful look on his face. That couldn't have been a tear in Manners's eye as he stood by the door? he asked himself. No, he must have been mistaken. Trick of the light. It would have been entirely out of character. Manners was a hard man, as he himself was learning to be. Emotionless. Practical. Corruptible—and therefore trustworthy. A man who understood and was bound by the rules of necessity.

He shook his head, and reached for the pages of his memorandum. After a moment of further thought, he began to write in his neat hand.

*   *   *

Summer passed into autumn. The officers had discovered the delights of the Western Hills, and their patrols threaded through the blazing red cover of the maples on the way to the temples they had commandeered.

More German forces arrived under the imposing General von Waldersee, who took over the high command from the avuncular General Chaffee. Denied any role in the actual destruction of the Yellow Peril, which the Kaiser had so thunderously denounced as he launched so publicly his latter-day crusade, his generals made sure that they were active after the event in punishing any Boxers on whom they could lay their hands—and since anyone on whom they did lay their hands was automatically considered to be a Boxer, the execution squads were kept busy for a good season. The inhabitants of Peking, who had decided it was safe again to come out of doors, returned to their homes, and waited for the furious flight of the Hohenzollern eagle to pass.

It did pass, as all things do.

The leaves began to fall. Autumn turned imperceptibly into winter. As cold winds blew through the strands of the willows drooping over the moat of the still occupied Forbidden City, embers of life revived among the frozen populace.

By the first snowfall in late November, the streets of Peking were back to their usual bustle. Haughty nobles being carried in their sedan chairs between their palaces thought it below their dignity to notice the foreign sentries who stood on the cold intersections of the Tatar City. Officials, who had returned to their offices in their various
yamens,
paused on their way home by the food stalls in Wangfujing or Hatamen to buy toffee apples for their concubines or children, and brushed shoulders with the red-faced corporals and sergeants from the occupying forces who were using their off-duty hours to explore the town. In the busy alleys of the Chinese City, which sprawled beyond the still ruined Qianmen gate, merchants discussed the price of silk in their now unboarded shops, and scholars might be seen peering over ancient scrolls in Liulichang, while others sought bargains among the many new curio shops that were suddenly flourishing and doing a roaring trade. In the chaos after the siege it had not only been the foreign soldiers who had indulged in looting: many Chinese fortunes had also been made. Few restaurant owners could remember a better season, and in the gambling halls and teahouses singsong girls were adapting themselves to a cruder, more exotic trade. There were, indeed, several new houses in the Chinese city that specialised in the entertainment of the ‘lobsters,' as the foreign soldiers were, not unaffectionately, called.