‘London has control over more than ten million square miles and a fifth of the world’s population. It creaks already. We don’t need to add another four hundred million Chinese. Otherwise I would have let the plot succeed.’
‘And handed the flick-book to England’s tai-pans and Old China Hands?’
‘Yes. They would have forced the Prime Minister to make a choice - let China sink into violent civil war or incorporate the Sacred Earth And Divine Land into the British Empire.’
Back in our private compartment I glanced at the luggage rack above my companion’s head. The Old Buddha had made sure many wonderful things both inexpensive and costly had been showered on us. To the side of the camp-stool sat my travelling tin-box with ‘John H. Watson, M. D. Late Indian Army’ in flaking gold paint on the lid. It was weighted down with the nine thousand taels of silver paid to me by General Yuán ‘for professional services’ rendered to China’s New Army.
Next to it were two other pieces of luggage. In the one suitcase were further souvenirs. In the second case were more gifts. These included a signed photograph of the E-D taken with my plate camera with a marginal note ‘Dr. Watson to deliver in person to His Majesty King-Emperor Edward’.
Only slightly less exotic than the myriad gifts was an item bought from my own pocket at Mycroft’s request - 10lbs of Da Hong Pao oolong tea, handmade from leaves withered, tumbled, curled and baked in small batches over charcoal.
I looked up at the familiar tin-box containing the very generous payment. On my return to England I would order the American luxury Aerocar with the air-cooled 24 horse power engine. I could then visit Cordings to be measured for a new tweed jacket. A sunny weekend would see me driving the monster automobile to the Gatwick Races, a copy of the ‘Pink ‘un’ (the Sporting Times) tucked into the glove-compartment.
I heard Holmes’s voice.
‘You mustn’t, Watson,’ he admonished.
‘Mustn’t what?’ I countered.
‘For as long as we’ve known each other you have waged and lost your Army pension on the ponies. You mustn’t take these earnings to the races,’ he said, a finger pointing upwards at my battered old tin-box. ‘You’ll lose the lot.’
‘Holmes!’ I gasped, ‘this is too much. You would certainly have been burned at the stake had you lived a few centuries ago. How well you read my...’
‘Not your mind, Watson! The expression of divine contentment on your face - it spells out ‘the horses’!’
Again we broke into helpless laughter.
The liner taking us across the ocean was named the Mongolia. I met Holmes on the promenade deck after overseeing the transport of our considerable impedimenta to the cabins. From under our feet came the deep, slow thrumming of the engines. The waters around us were as busy as the Thames at Wapping. Wherries plied between ocean shipping and the shore. Coasting vessels flew the red, white and black flag of the Kaiser’s mercantile marine.
‘Well,’ I said, a residual fear of sudden arrest dropping away, ‘soon we shall be steaming past the White Cliffs of Dover. Then you to your bee-hives!’
‘Indeed,’ Holmes replied. ‘And you to your surgery.’
As we uttered these cheery words a tender drew alongside the ship. A man dressed in Chinese Army uniform at about the level of Lieutenant appeared to recognise us. He waved, signalling he had a message. Once on deck he reached into a pocket and retrieved a document. It was a letter for Sherlock Holmes from General Yuán.
Holmes stretched out a hand. The subaltern stepped back sharply. He was adamant. ‘Sir Sherlock’ could read the letter but not take it in hand. The soldier had sworn an oath not to read its contents, and on pain of death he was to return it to the General.
For a minute Holmes peered at the script. Without a word he stepped back, inviting me to take his place.
Except for the heading ‘chéngwén’ (Memorandum) it was in English:
‘Dear Sir Sherlock, first may I wish you a pleasant voyage home. I hope soon other matters will distract you from our little contretemps. By now you will have discovered that when anyone manoeuvres for power in China he (or she) must risk everything on the turn of a card. Your faithful comrade-in-arms Dr. Watson will know there are crises where, as your Hamlet says, ‘My thoughts be bloody, or nothing worth’.
This letter serves to compliment and admonish you alike for your admirable concern for the Kuang-hsü Emperor’s survival. Foiling our little game was a triumph of deduction of the first order, but it may have terrible consequences for my country. The Middle Kingdom has learnt through dreadful experience there can be no humanitarianism in ever-recurring rebellions. They are but one phase in the deadly struggle for life. Survival of the fittest implies the extermination of the unfit. Don’t you see in this Emperor the embodiment of Hamlet, a man who loathes himself and his fate? Like Hamlet he aspires to be decisive but is indecisive. Like Hamlet he is lost in the fog of his own madness. Hamlet seeks to revenge but stretches the moment of revenge as long as he can - how does this differ from the feelings of the Son of Heaven towards his aunt, the Empress Dowager?
Worst of all, the Emperor has no interest in defence matters. He prefers not to think about them. Instead he practices calligraphy on fans and displays his treasured stone-rubbing collections to visitors. Our coasts have been left indefensible, wide open to invaders. Our gunboats are used for smuggling, their gun-barrels for laundry hangers.
You may see His Imperial Majesty as a tragic hero struggling to do his best, but his destiny must not be to become the puppet of an alien race. With his survival China has been left in the greatest danger. It is not the Reformists we should fear. They remain of concern but not consequence. It is Tokyo which flatters and misleads a weak and deeply-suggestible Emperor. Even as I write, word has come that Japan’s villainous military attaché General Fukishima Yasumasa is at large in Hunan Province, assessing the likely impact of Dr. Watson’s reforms in revitalising the New Army.
I am convinced only the Empress Dowager can best safeguard China. With great clarity she sees Japan for the danger it is. Allowing the Emperor to live, worse, obliging her to guarantee his life for two more years, leaves the Dynasty in constant danger. She will abide by her word but we tread on frost over ice.
Internally too the Middle Kingdom remains in deep trouble. The August Mother will never countenance a State in which the laws of the ancestors have become obsolete. She holds that so splendid, so weighty a civilization as ours cannot afford to disturb its underpinnings lest the entire edifice crumbles. The ship of state would become rudderless. It would cast itself adrift on a chaotic sea, at the mercy of any wind. To her the dogs of change should be allowed to sleep.
When the Old Buddha mounts the dragon for her journey to the Nine Springs, China will be in greater trouble still. Like a fan in Autumn, one day she will be laid upon a shelf. We say ‘When the tree falls, the shade is gone’.
We must hope that the Great Ancestress lives at least as long as her adopted son, otherwise the map will undergo the most terrible transformation, to the disadvantage not only of Asia but to the Western Powers too. Japan already has Korea and Formosa. Her appetite for conquest is unquenchable. Tokyo will not stop at China, vast as we are, indigestible as we may make ourselves, like the pufferfish. She will want Baluchistan and Burmah and Malaya and Laos and Cambodia. One day even England may find herself in hand-to-hand combat with Dai Nippon Teikoku, the ‘Great Japanese Empire’.
When you see Sir Edward Grey and your War Minister give them my kindest regards. Tell them the Empires of China and England hang together, even as lips and teeth. Beg them to sell no more first-class battleships to the Japanese. The Ironclads will be used ruthlessly against us.