Kong: few houses were visible on the shore and even fewer trees; it was a wild, gale-swept place, not unlike the other islands nearby, only bigger, steeper and taller. The name Hong Kong, Fitcher said, meant ‘fragrant harbour’: this struck Paulette as a strangely whimsical description for such a desolate and forbidding place.
The Redruth dropped anchor in a bay that was overlooked by the tallest peak in the island. There were several other foreign ships there; a small flotilla of bumboats and pilot-boats was swarming around them, ferrying provisions and passengers between the ships and the mainland.
Early the next morning Fitcher took a pilot-boat to Macau, leaving Paulette in charge of the Redruth’s floating garden. He returned a day later, looking thoroughly despondent.
Captain Charles Elliott, the British Representative in Macau, had treated him to a gloomy summation of the present situation. It appeared that the Emperor had sent down a series of edicts, commanding the provincial government to act forcefully against the opium trade. In response they had seized and burned the ‘fast-crab’ boats that had once roamed the Pearl River, transporting opium directly from ship to shore. Many English traders had assumed that the situation would soon go back to normal again – in the past too there had been brief periods of increased vigilance, but they had never lasted for more than a few months. But it was different this time: a few dealers had tried to rebuild their boats and the mandarins had burned them again. That was just the beginning. Next the mandarins had begun to arrest local opium-dealers; some were thrown in prison, some were executed. Their shops and dens were seized and the opium was burned. Then the regulations for travel on the Pearl River were tightened and as a result chops had become very difficult to obtain. Only those foreigners who were vouched for by the merchants’ guild, in Canton, could hope to get chops at this time: since Fitcher had no such connections he was unlikely to be granted one in the immediate future. Such being the circumstances, Captain Elliott had recommended that Fitcher keep the Redruth at anchor near Hong Kong for the time being, to await a more favourable turn of events.
All through Fitcher’s recital, Paulette had been listening for the name ‘Chinnery’. Not having heard it, she said: ‘And did you meet anyone else, sir?’
Fitcher glanced at her, and after a moment’s silence, muttered: ‘So I did. I also went to see Mr Chinnery.’
‘Oh? And it was a useful visit, sir?’
‘Yes. But not in the way I had expected.’
Mr Chinnery had received Fitcher in his studio, which was on the uppermost floor of his residence, at number 8, Rua Ignacio Baptista: a large, sunlit room, it was hung with several excellent portraits and landscapes, including one that was in the process of being finished by a pair of Chinese apprentices.
Within a few minutes Fitcher understood that Mr Chinnery had invited him into his studio in the expectation of receiving a commission for a portrait. When Fitcher explained that he had come in regard to an entirely different matter – a mission that concerned a pair of plant-pictures from Canton – the artist’s expression had grown a little peevish. He favoured the camellia paintings with no more than a cursory glance before declaring them to be inconsequential little gew-gaws: the daubings of Canton’s painters were not worthy of the attention of a serious man, he had declared; indeed, the scribblers who produced botanical illustrations and the like could scarcely be called artists at all – they were but counterfeiters and copyists who produced cheap souvenirs for travellers and seamen.
‘Art is a dead letter in China, sir, a dead letter…!’
Fitcher had understood that he had found the artist in one of his dark moods: he had decided to excuse himself, perhaps to return another day. But when he stood up to leave, the artist, perhaps repenting of his ill- humour, had asked if Fitcher knew the way to the jetty, where he was to catch his boat. When Fitcher said no, he did not, Mr Chinnery offered to send someone with him, to show him the way: it so happened, he said, that he had a nephew staying with him, his brother’s son; he had arrived from India some time ago and had quickly learnt his way around the city.
Fitcher had gratefully accepted this offer, whereupon Mr Chinnery had summoned his nephew, who proved to be a young man in his mid-twenties. He bore a close family resemblance to the artist: their faces, with their prominent eyes and knob-like noses, were so similar that they could have been avatars of each other, separated only by age, and also, perhaps, by a slight tint of complexion, which in the case of the younger man, was a little swarthier. So alike, in fact, were the two Chinnerys that if Fitcher had not known better he would have taken them to be father and son rather than uncle and nephew: nor was the likeness merely a matter of appearance – on the way to the jetty Fitcher learnt that the young man was also an artist, much in the mould of the senior Mr Chinnery. Indeed Mr Chinnery had been his first teacher, said the youth: now following in his footsteps, he was planning to go to Canton in search of commissions; through his uncle’s influence he had already secured a chop and intended to leave in a few days.
On hearing this, Fitcher had been struck by an idea: he had shown young Chinnery the two camellia paintings and had asked him if he might be interested in making inquiries about them while he was in Canton. Young Chinnery had responded enthusiastically and in the course of the short walk to the jetty they had reached an agreement: Fitcher would pay him a retainer in exchange for regular reports on his progress; in the event of success there would be a substantial reward.
The one thing about the arrangement that had worried Fitcher was the prospect of being parted from his paintings. But this concern too had been quickly addressed: it turned out that the younger Mr Chinnery prided himself on his skills as a copyist. He had asked to keep the pictures only for a couple of days: it would take him no longer than that to make copies of them, he had said, and as soon as he was done he would deliver the originals to the Redruth in person.
‘And may I ask sir,’ said Paulette hesitantly, ‘what was the name of this nephew of Mr Chinnery?’
‘Edward – Edward Chinnery.’ Here Fitcher paused to tug awkwardly at his beard. ‘But he said ee’d know him as Robin.’
Paulette caught her breath: ‘Oh did he?’
‘Young Chinnery was very pleased, I might say, to hear that ee were here; said ee’d been like a sister to him once but there’d been a falling-out over some trivial thing. Said he’d sorely missed eer company – but he called ee by some other name – what was it? Pug-something?’
‘Puggly?’ Paulette had clasped her hands to her cheeks in mortification, but she dropped them now. ‘Yes – he has many nicknames for me. Robin was… is… indeed a close friend. Please forgive me sir. I should have told you – but there was a most unfortunate incident. Shall I tell you of it?’
‘Ee needn’t trouble eerself with that Miss Paulette,’ said Fitcher with one of his rare smiles. ‘Mr Chinnery has told me already.’
*
The cry caught everyone unawares: Kinara! Land ho! China ahead! Maha-Chin agey hai!
Bahram and Zadig were up on the Anahita’s quarter-deck when the lascar on lookout duty began to wave and shout. They went to the dawa bulwark and shaded their eyes and soon enough the straight line of the horizon began to crack and splinter, giving way to the silhouette of a jagged landscape. Ahead lay the tip of Hainan, China’s southernmost extremity, and for a while the Anahita sailed close enough to the island that Bahram was able to study it through a spyglass: it was not much different, in appearance, from Singapore and some of the other islands they had passed on the way, with steep hills, dense forests and fringes of golden sand along the shores.
Shortly after the sighting the officers called all hands on deck and put them on high alert: the waters around Hainan were notorious for pirates, and every vessel that came into view had to be treated as suspect. Lookouts were posted agil and peechil and the topmen were sent scrambling aloft.
Tabar lagao! Gabar uthao!
With stu’nsails on the yardarms and sky-sails atop every mast, the Anahita leapt before the wind, her cutwater plunging between swell and trough, her beams banking steeply as she tacked. The island vanished as the ship swung out to sea, but only to reappear towards sunset, when a cloud-wreathed mountain was spotted again.
The sight exhilarated Bahram, reminding him of another journey and another island he had visited, on the far side of the globe, some twenty-two years before.
Tell me, he said to Zadig. Do you remember that time? When we met the General?
Zadig laughed: Of course, Bahram-bhai. Who could forget it?
It happened in February 1816, when Bahram and Zadig were on their way to England on the HCS Cuffnells.
