Flood of Fire (47 page)

May 30, 1840

Honam

This morning I arrived at the print-shop to find Zhong Lou-si seated inside. This had never happened before so I knew something unusual was going on.

Zhong Lou-si and Compton were leafing through a stack of papers. Their faces were sombre, yet incredulous; they looked as though they had received news that they could not quite believe.

Mat liu aa?
I said to Compton and he shook his head despondently.
Maa maa fu fu Ah Neel
– things are not so good.

What's happened?

Ah Neel, we have received word from Singapore, he said. A British fleet has arrived there, from Calcutta. There are six warships including one that is very big, armed with seventy-four guns. There are also two steamers and twenty transport ships, carrying soldiers and stores. Many of the soldiers are Indians, some from Bang-gala and some from Man-da-la-sa, in the southern part of Yindu. The transport ships all belong to Indian merchants.

How do you know? I asked, and Compton explained that Zhong Lou-si had sent an agent to Singapore, to keep an eye on what was going on. This man is apparently a master-mariner and was once a pirate; he is said to be very well-informed.

And where were the ships heading? I asked, and Compton told me then that their destination is China. As proof of this he showed me a copy of the
Singapore Chronicle
that had been forwarded to Zhong Lou-si by his agent: it was clearly stated in the paper that the fleet would soon be proceeding to southern China. From there the expedition would sail northwards, to some point from which it could exert pressure directly on Beijing.

Apparently all of this is now public knowledge in Singapore.

The news has come as a great shock to both Compton and Zhong Lou-si. Despite all the warnings, in their hearts I think neither of them believed that the British would actually attack China. Commissioner Lin himself has been known to say that he does not think that it will come to war – I suspect he finds it impossible to conceive that any country would send an army across the seas to force another country to buy opium.

I asked if they knew how many soldiers had reached Singapore. They said that by their agent's reckoning there were about three thousand, of whom about half are Indian. Zhong Lou-si has taken some reassurance from the size of the force; he thinks the British would have brought more troops if they really intended to wage war. He cannot believe that they would attempt to attack a country as large and as populous as China with such a small army. He thinks the British want only to make a show of force, as they have done twice before – in 1816 and 1823 – when they sent sepoys to Macau.

Surely, said Zhong Lou-si, if they were planning to make war they would send mostly English troops?

He finds it hard to imagine that they would depend on sepoys for something so serious – in similar circumstances the Chinese would never use
yi
troops.

I pointed out, as I have before, that the British have always relied heavily on Indian sepoys in their Asian campaigns – they did so in the Arakan, in Burma, in the Persian Gulf and so on. I told them also that the number of troops signified nothing: the main thrust of the attack would come from their warships, not their infantry. They would be relying on their navy to overwhelm the Chinese fleet.

Zhong Lou-si conceded that on the water it would be hard for the Chinese forces to resist the English fleet. But he added that at some point the English would also have to fight on land. There they would find themselves at a huge disadvantage in numbers. They would be taught a lesson if they made such a great mistake as to launch a ground assault.

But it appears that the British troops are preparing to do exactly that. According to the agent's reports from Singapore, the soldiers have been conducting many drills, on land as well as water. One of their weapons has made a great impression on the townsmen because it bears a resemblance to the fireworks that light up the sky on Chinese New Year. The agent has learnt from an informer that the weapon is called a ‘Congreve rocket' (these two words were written in English, on the margins of the letter, no doubt by the informer).

Zhong Lou-si asked if I knew anything about this weapon and I said no. He then asked if I could find out about it.

At first I was dumbfounded: where on earth was I going to find out about rockets?

But then I had an idea: I remembered hearing that there was a large library in the British Factory in Canton, with books on all manner of subjects.

The factory's residents are all gone of course, but the building is still looked after by its Chinese servants, many of whom are employees of the merchants of the Co-Hong guild. It struck me that if prodded by Zhong Lou-si they might be able to arrange for Compton and myself to visit the library.

I put the idea to Zhong Lou-si and he was much taken with it: within a few hours we received word that the requisite arrangements had been made.

Shortly after sunset Compton and I went to the British Factory and were led through its deserted interior to the shuttered library, which is on the building's highest floor.

The lib rary is much larger than I had thought, with comfortable leather armchairs, large desks, and rows and rows of glass-fronted bookcases. There were so many books that we were dismayed; we thought it would take us days to go through each of the shelves.

Fortunately there was a catalogue, lying on a desk. With its help I quickly located a treatise called
The Field
Officer's Guide to Artillery
: sure enough it contained a section on the Congreve rocket.

Turning to it, I discovered to my amazement that this rocket is actually a refinement of a weapon that was invented in India. Of course the Chinese have had rockets for centuries, but apparently they've only ever used them as fireworks, not for military purposes: rockets were first used as military weapons by Sultan Haider Ali of Mysore and his son Tipu, some forty years ago, during their wars with the East India Company. It was in south India, in the fortress of Bangalore, that rockets were adapted to carry explosives. Haider Ali used them to spread terror and confusion and caused the present Duke of Wellington some notable setbacks. Although the Mysore sultans were eventually defeated the British recognized the value of their innovation and sent a number of captured rockets to the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, where one Mr William Congreve (a descendant of the playwright no doubt) then refined and improved the weapon. Since that time the British have used Congreve rockets in the Napoleonic wars and in the war of 1812. Now evidently they are planning to use them in China.

Compton and I lingered for hours in the library. We found several other ‘useful' books – one on fortifications for example, and another on navigation – but to our disappointment there was nothing on steamships or boiler engines.

On our way out, I helped myself to a few books of my choice. It has been a long time since I last read a novel, romance or play: I scooped them off the shelves and stuffed them into my bag –
Pamela, Love in Excess, Robinson Crusoe, The Vicar of Wakefield, Tristram Shandy
, a translation of Voltaire's
Zadig
, and a half-dozen more.

As we were about to leave my eyes fell on a book that stood out among the library's sober tomes because of its brightly embossed spine:
The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast
by William Roscoe.

It was the very edition that I'd bought for Raju in Calcutta when I started teaching him English, years ago; it cost a guinea as I recall, even though it was the cheaper, American edition. I could not resist it – I pulled it off the shelf and dropped it in the bag.

When I returned to my lodgings, the first book I took out of the bag was
The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast
. I have read it to Raju so many times that I know it almost by heart. As I ran my eyes over the familiar illustrations, Raju's voice filled my ears, lisping over the words:

I could feel my son's weight on my lap and I could hear myself, correcting his pronunciation: ‘No, Raju – this is how you say it …'

The memories were so vivid that the book dropped from my hand and my eyes filled with tears.

To brood uselessly serves no purpose – that is why I do not dwell on the past; that is why I try not to think too much of Raju and Kamala. But
The Butterfly's Ball
took me unawares and pierced my defences. It was as if an embankment had been swept away and I were floundering in a flood, trying not to drown in my own grief.