Mr Mott’s Chinese pronunciation was difficult to understand, but San and Guo Si understood enough to discover that the two young men were priests who had dedicated their lives to work in the Christian mission to China. Now they were on their way to Fuzhou in order to build up a community in which they could begin to convert the Chinese to the true religion. They would fight against paganism and show the way to God’s kingdom, which was the ultimate destination for all human beings.
Would San and Guo Si consider helping these gentlemen to improve their fluency in Chinese, which was such a difficult language? They had a smattering already but wanted to work hard during the voyage so that they would be well prepared when they disembarked on the Chinese coast.
San thought for a moment. He saw no reason that they should not accept the remuneration the fair-haired men were prepared to pay. It would make their own return to China easier.
He bowed.
‘It will give Guo Si and me great pleasure to help these gentlemen become better acquainted with the Chinese language.’
They started work the very next day. Elgstrand and Lodin wanted to invite San and Guo Si to their part of the ship, but San said no. He preferred to remain in the bow.
It was San who became the missionaries’ teacher. Guo Si spent most of the time sitting to one side, listening.
The two Swedish missionaries treated the brothers like equals. San was surprised that they were not undertaking this voyage in order to find work, or because they had been forced to leave. What drove these young men was a genuine desire and determination to save souls from eternal damnation. Elgstrand and Lodin were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their faith. Elgstrand came from a simple farming family, while Lodin’s father had been a rural minister. They pointed out on a map where they came from. They spoke openly, making no attempt to hide their simple origins.
When San saw the map of the world, he realised the full extent of their journey.
Elgstrand and Lodin were keen students. They worked hard and learned quickly. By the time the ship passed through the Bay of Biscay, they had established a routine involving lessons in the morning and in the late afternoon. San started asking questions about their faith and their God. He wanted to understand things about his mother that had been beyond his comprehension. She had known nothing about the Christian God, but she had prayed to other invisible higher powers. How could a person be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to make other people believe in the God that person worshipped himself?
Elgstrand spoke more often, reinforcing the message that all men are sinners but could be saved and after death could enter paradise.
San thought about the hatred he felt for Zi, for Wang (who was probably dead) and for JA. Elgstrand maintained that the Christian God taught that the worst crime a man could commit was to kill a fellow human being.
San didn’t like that idea at all; his common sense told him that Elgstrand and Lodin couldn’t be right. All the time they talked about what was in store after death, but never about how a human life could be changed while it was being lived.
Elgstrand often came back to the idea that all human beings were equal. In the eyes of God everybody was a poor sinner. But San could not understand how, when the Day of Judgement dawned, he and Zi and JA could be assessed equally.
He was extremely doubtful. But at the same time he was pleasantly surprised by the kindness and apparently boundless patience the two young men from Sweden displayed towards him and Guo Si. He could also see that his brother, who often had private conversations with Lodin, seemed to be impressed by what he heard. As a result, San never initiated any discussions with Guo Si about his opinion of the white God.
Elgstrand and Lodin shared their food with San and Guo Si. San couldn’t know what was true and what wasn’t true when it came to their God, but he had no doubt that the two men lived in accordance with what they preached.
After thirty-two days at sea the Nellie called at Cape Town to replenish stores and rode at anchor in the shadow of Table Mountain before continuing southward. As they came to the Cape of Good Hope, they were hit by a severe southerly storm. The Nellie drifted for four days with sails taken in, riding the waves. San was terrified by the thought that the ship might sink, and he could see that the crew was scared as well. The only people on board who were completely calm were Elgstrand and Lodin. Or perhaps they concealed their fear well.
If San was scared, his brother was panic-stricken. Lodin sat with Guo Si throughout the whole of the raging storm. When it was over, Guo Si went down on bended knee and said he wanted to declare his belief in the God the white men were going to introduce to his Chinese brothers.
San was filled with even more admiration for the missionaries who had been so calm while the storm raged. But he couldn’t bring himself to do what Guo Si had done and kneel down to pray to a God that for him was still too mysterious and evasive.
They rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and favourable winds assisted their passage over the Indian Ocean. The weather became warmer, easier to cope with. San continued with his teaching, and every day Guo Si would go off with Lodin for their intimate, mumbled conversations.
But San knew nothing of what the future held. One day Guo Si suddenly fell ill. He woke San up during the night and whispered that he had started to cough up blood. Guo Si was deathly pale and shivering. San asked one of the sailors on night watch to fetch the missionaries. The man, who came from America and had a black mother but a white father, looked down at Guo Si.
‘Are you suggesting that I should wake up one of the gentlemen just because a coolie is lying here and bleeding?’
‘If you don’t, they will punish you tomorrow.’
The sailor frowned. He fetched Elgstrand and Lodin. They carried Guo Si to their cabin and laid him on one of the bunks. Lodin seemed to be the one who knew more about patient care and gave him several different medicines. San squatted back against the wall in the cramped cabin. The flickering light from the lantern cast shadows onto the walls. The ship progressed slowly through the swell.
The end came very quickly. Guo Si died as dawn broke. Before he breathed his last, Elgstrand and Lodin promised that he would be delivered unto God if he confessed his sins and affirmed his belief. They held his hands and prayed together. San sat by himself in the corner of the room. There was nothing he could do. His second brother had left him. But he couldn’t help but notice that the missionaries gave Guo Si a feeling of peace and assurance that he had never experienced before in his life.
San had difficulty understanding the last words Guo Si said to him. But he had the feeling Guo Si wasn’t afraid of death.
‘I’m leaving you now,’ said Guo Si. ‘I’m walking on water, like the man they call Jesus. I’m on my way to a different and a better world. Wu is waiting for me there. And you will come to join us one day.’
When Guo Si died, San sat with his head on his knees and his hands over his ears. He shook his head when Elgstrand tried to talk to him. Nobody could help him with the feeling of solitary impotence that overwhelmed him.
He returned to his place at the very front of the ship. Two members of the crew sewed Guo Si’s body into an old sail, together with some rusty iron nails as weights.
Elgstrand told San that the captain would conduct a sea burial two hours later.
‘I want to be together with my brother,’ said San. ‘I don’t want him to lie out there on deck before they drop him into the sea.’
Elgstrand and Lodin carried the body in its shroud of sailcloth into their cabin and left San alone with his brother. Guo Si would never return to China, but traditional beliefs made it essential for a part of his body to be buried there. San took a knife from the little table and carefully opened up the bottom of the package. He cut off Guo Si’s left foot. He was careful to make sure that no blood dripped onto the floor, tied a piece of cloth around the stump, then tied another piece of cloth around the foot, and put it inside his shirt. Then he repaired the hole in the sail. Nobody would be able to tell that it had been opened.