"But even a little war will put an end to traffic with the Chinese merchants," she lamented. "Oh, it is so hard, when Josiah and his friends have invested so wisely! To be robbed of the deserved profit that would have fulfilled his dream! It is too bad!" And she looked at me with trembling mouth and great blue eyes -
Gad, she was like Elspeth, even to the imbecile parting of those crimson lips, and the quivering of her top hamper. Feeling slightly fogged, I asked, what investment had dear Josiah made?
"Why, opium, of course! He was so clever, laying out Papa's legacy in two thousand chests of the very choicest Patna," says this fair flower of the vicarage. "And it would have fetched ever so much money at Canton—more than enough to build our dear little church! But if war comes, and he cannot sell his cargo …" She sniffed and looked woebegone.
"D'you mean to tell me," says I, astonished, "that Josiah is smuggling poppy?" I know the Church is game for anything, as a rule, and Hong Kong only existed for the opium trade; most everyone was in it. But it don't go with dog-collars and Sunday schools, exactly.
"Gracious, no! Dear Sir Harry, how could you suppose such a thing? Why, it is not smuggling at all nowadays!" She was all lovely earnestness as she explained—and so help me, these were her very words: "Josiah says that the fifth supplementary clause of the new treaty removes all restrictions on the trade in opium, cash, pulse, grain, saltpetre … oh, I forget all the things, but one of them is spelter, whatever that may be; it sounds very horrid. It is true," she admitted gravely, "that the treaty is not yet ratified, but Sir Hope Grant will see to that, and Josiah says there can be no illegality in profiting by anticipation." So there.
Josiah'll end up in Lambeth Palace or Dartmoor, at this rate, thinks I. Imagine—a clergyman peddling the black smoke. Purely out of curiosity, I asked didn't he have moral qualms? She twitched her tits in impatience.
"Oh, Josiah says that is Nonconformist missionary talk, and that it is well-known the natives of China use opium as a sedative, rather than as a narcotic, and that it does not one-tenth of the harm that strong waters cause among our poorer classes at home. Gin, and such things." Then she sighed again, and they quivered in dejection. "But it is all by the way now. If he cannot sell the cargo … and he could have built our church and to spare, too!"
With enough over to start a couple of brothels, no doubt, the way Josiah did business. "Hold on," says I. "Why can't he sell it—where is it, by the way?"
"At Macao. Josiah is gone over today to see it put aboard the last crabs and scrambling dragons." Not two years out of the schoolroom, sink me, and she was talking like a taipan. *(* Fast crabs and scrambling dragons were opium-running craft.)
"Well, there you are—he can send it up Pearl River to the Canton factories tomorrow, and sell it to the Hongs."
"Oh, if it were so simple! But you see, Sir Harry, with all the war talk there is word that the Chinese merchants have been forbidden to buy from our people … and … and Josiah and his friends have no influence to persuade them."
"Then get Dent or Jardine to run it in—they'll persuade anybody—and get a better price than Josiah could, I dare say."
"And take all our profit in commission! They are the greediest persons, you know," says this tender child. "Besides, the price is settled. Josiah vows to take no less than eight pounds a chest."
"Jesus—I mean, dear me!" says I. "Two thousand chests—why, that's near a ton, isn't it? Sixteen thousand quid!" I was no expert, but you couldn't be in Hong Kong five minutes without knowing the going figures. "Phew! Well, my dear, he'd better get it to Canton somehow before the war starts—stay, though: can't he put it in bond until things are more settled?"
"It is prepared chandoo, not raw cake," says the Opium Queen pathetically. "Unless it goes directly, it must spoil. Oh, is it not wretchedly unlucky? Those who could run it will do so only on extortionate terms; those who would, for a fair consideration, are not people who could deal with the Chinese officials and merchants. Josiah has a skipper, a Mr Ward, but he cannot speak Chinese, even!"
And it was then, with another superb sigh, that she turned those great misty eyes on me in undoubted appeal, and said in a little voice: "It would be so easy … for the right person, you see." She looked away, downcast. "Josiah says he would pay him ten per cent."
Lady Geraldine had been rather more subtle … but she hadn't been offering sixteen hundred quid. Handsome pocket money, if you like—and easier to earn than falling off a log, for whatever the Pekin government said, the Hong merchants would cut Confucius's throat to buy a ton of chandoo, whoever offered it. And she was right—all that was needed was someone with bold front and bearing who could brush aside inconvenient officials on the run up-river, stick out his jaw at any Chink jack-in-the-office who threatened confiscation, and see that Josiah's ignorant skipper found his way safe to Jackass Point. Nothing in that.
Mind you, she had a hard bark, asking a British Army colonel to nursemaid her shipload of puggle—yet why not? Here was I, friendly disposed, officer and gentleman, knew the ropes, spoke the lingo (well, I could understand a Mandarin, and make myself enough understood in turn; with the coolies I had to use pigeon and my boots), and just the chap to stare down any yellow office-wallahs. A week till my ship sailed, ample time … sixteen hundred … Mrs Carpenter swooning with gratitude …h'm…
You must remember that these thoughts ran through my mind with those innocent-wanton eyes fixed on mine, and that excellent bosom heaving between us. And if you think she was a froward piece, or that I should have smelled a battalion of rats … well, it was a plausible tale, and not even a scent of risk. With our garrison at Canton, the Pearl was as safe as the Avon, and there was no stigma—well, not to signify. It was "trade", not "opium", that would have raised an eyebrow at Horse Guards. And sixteen hundred … for a jolly sail on the river?
"We … I … should be so grateful," she murmured, and gave me a quick slantendicular.
"You little goose!" says I indulgently, "if you want me to do it … why not say so?" I gave her my sad Flashy smile. "Don't you know I'd do anything for you?" And with a light laugh I kissed her masterfully, munching away, and I dare say we might have done the business there and then if a gaggle of brats with a governess hadn't hove in view, causing us to break clean and remark on the splendid view, such a perfect day for picnicking.
We settled the details in the tonga back to town, myself making light of it and pinching her palm, she all flushed confusion and breathless gratitude. How could she and dear Josiah ever thank me? Well, Josiah could stump up the rhino on my return, and she would certainly do the rest, if I could judge by the light in her eye and the way she shivered when I squeezed her knee. They're all alike, you know.
Aye. I should have remembered Lady Geraldine.
I don't know who ran the first chest of opium into China, but he was a great man in his way. It was as though some imaginary trader had put into the Forth with a cargo of Glenlivet to discover that the Scots had never heard of whisky. There was a natural appetite, as you may say. And while the Chinks had been puffing themselves half-witted long before the first foreign trader put his nose into the Pearl River, there's no doubt that our own John Company had developed their taste for the drug, back in the earlies, and before long they couldn't get enough of it.