we plant? Grim hints about China’s power? The hugeness of her population? That Her Majesty’s Government may annex the whole country if
any power intrudes? The complications of the trade in opium? Tea?
He heard the clatter of feet aloft as the watch changed and the marine band began practicing. He yawned again and closed his eyes contentedly. Nothing like a nap after lunch, he told himself. Thank God I’m a gentleman—don’t have to plant real seeds like a smelly peasant or filthy farmer. Damn, fancy working with your hands all day! Sowing seeds. Growing things. All the muck spreading. Horrifying thought. Sowing diplomatic seeds is much more important and the work of a gentleman. Now, where was I? Ah yes. Tea. Life must have been terrible before we had tea. Absolutely. Can’t understand how people existed without tea. Pity it doesn’t grow in England, That would save a lot of trouble.
“Great God in heaven!” he burst out and sat upright.
“Tea! Of course tea! It’s been under your nose for years and you’ve never seen it! You’re a genius!” He was so excited with his idea that he jumped off the bed and danced a jig. Then he relieved himself in the chamber pot and went into the main cabin and sat at his desk, his heart pounding. You know how to solve the Britain-China nightmare of the tea-bullion-opium imbalance.
You know, he told himself, astonished and awed by the brilliance and simplicity of the idea that Struan’s final sally had triggered. “Good God, Dirk,” he chorted aloud, “if you only knew. You’ve cut your own throat, and all the China traders along with you. To the glory of Britain and the immortality of me!”
Yes, absolutely. So you’d better keep your mouth shut, he cautioned himself. Walls have ears.
The idea was so simple: Destroy China’s tea monopoly. Buy or beg or steal—in great secrecy—a ton of the seeds of the tea plant. Transport the seeds surreptitiously to India. There must be dozens of areas in which tea could flourish. Dozens. And in my lifetime plantations could be flourishing—growing our own teas, on our soil. With our own tea, we’ll no longer need bullion or opium to pay for China teas. Profit on Indian tea sales will soon equal, double, triple the sale of opium, so that’s not a problem. We’ll grow the teas of the world and we’ll sell to the world. The Crown gains in fantastically increased tea revenues, for of course we will grow it cheaper and better and the price will be below China teas. British brains and all that! And we’ll gain in moral grandeur for ceasing opium trading. The cursed opium smugglers are put out of business, for without the lever of opium they serve no useful function, so we can outlaw opium. India gains hugely. China gains, for there’ll be no more opium smuggling, and she consumes her own tea anyway.
And you, William Longstaff—the only man who can implement such a plan—you will gain in monumental prestige. With modest luck, a dukedom offered by a grateful Parliament, for you and you alone will have solved the un-solvable.
But whom can I trust to get the tea seeds? And how to persuade the Chinese to sell them? Of course they’ll discern the consequences immediately. And whom to trust to transport the seeds safely? Can’t use one of the traders—they’d sabotage me at once if they had the slightest inkling! And how to get the Viceroy of India on your side now, so that he won’t steal the credit for the idea?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As the two men and their seconds climbed into the ring that had been erected near the flag at Glessing’s Point, a breathless silence settled on the massed spectators.
Each was a burly hard-faced six-footer in his early twenties. Each had his head shaven to protect him from the other’s grip. And when they took off their rough shirts each had the same rippling steel of knotted muscles and bore on his back ancient ruts from the cat-o’-nine-tails.
The fighters were beautifully matched and everyone knew that much was at stake. The admiral and the general had personally approved the selection of the fighters, and had exhorted them to win. The honor of the whole Service was on their shoulders, the wealth of the savings of their mates. The future would be sweet for the victor. For the vanquished there would be no future.
Henry Hardy Hibbs climbed through the single rope and stood in the center of the ring where the yard-square mark had been chalked. “Yor ’Hexcellency, Yor ’Ighness, M’Lords and Yor ’Onors,” he began. “A fight to the finish, between, in this corner, Bosun Jem Grum o’ the Royal Navy—”
There was a huge cheer from the mob of sailors to the east and jeers and obscenities from the packed ranks of English and Indian soldiers to the west. Longstaff, the archduke, the admiral and the general were seated in the place of honor on the north ringside, an honor guard of impassive marines surrounding them. Behind the archduke were his two liveried bodyguards, armed and vigilant. Struan, Brock, Cooper, Tillman, Robb, Gorth and all the tai-pans had seats on the south side, and behind them were the lesser traders and naval and army officers, all elbowing for a better view. And on the periphery was the ever-growing crush of Chinese who poured down from the hovels of Tai Ping Shan, chattering, giggling, waiting.
“And in this corner, representing the Royal Army, Sergeant Bill Tinker—”
And again raucous cheers interrupted him. Hibbs held up his arms, and his verminous frock coat lifted away from his ball-like paunch. When the cheers and jeers died away, he called out, “London prize-ring rules: each round to end with a fall. There be thirty seconds twixt rounds, and when the bell be rung, eight seconds be allowed for the man to come up to the scratch and toe the line. No kickin’ an’ no buttin’ an’ no hittin’ below the belt and no gougin’. Him wot doan come out of corner, or him wot’s seconds throw in the towel, be the loser.”
He motioned importantly to the seconds, who examined the fists of each other’s fighter to see that they were pickled in walnut juice, as was customary, and held no stone, and inspected the fighting boots to see that the soles had only the regulation three spikes.
“Now shake ’ands an’ may the best man win!”
The fighters came to the center of the ring, their shoulder muscles quivering with pent-up excitement, their belly muscles tight, nostrils flaring as they smelled the dank sour sweat of each other.
They toed the line, and touched hands. Then they bunched their rocklike fists and waited, their reflexes hair-triggered.
Hibbs and the seconds ducked under the ropes and out of the way.
“Your Highness?” Longstaff said, giving Zergeyev the honor.
The archduke got up and walked to the ship’s bell that was near the ring. He slammed it with the striker and a wild frenzy swept the foreshore.
The instant the bell sounded, the fighters lashed out at each other, their legs planted like oaks and as strong, toes firm on the line. Grum’s knuckles rocked into Tinker’s face and left a bloody weal in their wake, and Tinker’s fist sank violently into Grum’s belly. They mauled each other incessantly, driven by the tumult and their anger and hatred. There was no science to their fighting, no attempt at avoiding blows.
After eight minutes their bodies were scarlet-splotched, their faces bloody. Both men had broken noses, and their knuckles were raw and slippery with sweat and blood. Both were gasping for breath, their chests heaving like mighty bellows, and both had blood in their mouths. And then in the ninth minute Tinker smashed a right hook that caught Grum in the throat and felled him. The army cheered and the navy cursed. Grum got up, beside himself with rage and pain, and rushed at his enemy, forgetting that the first round was over, forgetting everything except that he had to kill this devil. He caught Tinker around the throat and they were hacking and gouging and the army screamed “Foul!” The seconds swarmed into the ring and tried to drag the fighters apart, and there was almost a riot among the soldiers and the sailors and their officers.