Dragons in Shallow Waters Read online

  “I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” I replied. “If there’s anything I might do…”

  “You might mention the troops in your next dispatch,” Fairchild said. “Reassure those at home that we shall be quite safe.”

  The train pulled in to a smattering of applause from gathered foreigner onlookers, but when the soldiers stepped down from the train cars, stiff and stony-faced in the regalia of their respective countries, they attracted loud jeers from many of the Chinese spectators. Yang guizi! Foreign ghosts! they called as the soldiers marched down the platform. The troops, wrong-footed by this negative reception, tried to progress steadily forward as the crowds swarmed around them. Fairchild and his colleagues shook hands with the most senior officers, chaotically leading them out of the station in what ought to have been a glorious arrival and now appeared to be something of an uncontrolled scrum. Dozens of foreign residents had come out to line the streets, but they strained now to see the faces of their promised saviors. I spied Nina in the crowd; she stood with the student interpreters, Hugo and James. The boys whistled and cheered, but Nina’s smile was tight and small.

  Violence simmered as more Chinese pushed behind the soldiers. These locals weren’t necessarily Boxers, but the sentiments of the gathered mob were vociferously anti-foreign. They whistled and chanted; their insults and cries eclipsed the good-spirited welcome planned by officials. Hongmao guizi! Red fur devils! Such phrases were not new to me. Upon my arrival in China I had undertaken my journey across Shantung, where peasants watched wide-eyed as I circled their villages, beginning my travels simply with the idea of seeing Mount Tai and later continuing directionless but happy. Their gazes had followed me, their words had trailed my steps, and yet I had never heard those vivid descriptions spoken with such venom as that day by the station, vowels guttural and thick, catching foul and ugly in throats. The troops picked up speed on approach to the Legation Quarter, and Oscar walked more rapidly, following the pace of the new arrivals as they attempted to outpace their detractors. I fell behind, keeping an eye on Nina, who moved joylessly with the foreign crowd. I was shocked to see one of the disgruntled spectators turn to her, unleashing a torrent of threatening words. I saw Nina’s mouth move in pleading shape, but could not hear her words. The young man bared his teeth in response, and grabbed at Nina’s necklace, ripping the string of pearls from around her neck before sprinting away.

  “Hey!” Nina shouted after him in indignant Chinese. “Don’t you dare run away! Give that back!”

  She lunged after him, only to be immediately restrained by Hugo and James. The man dangled the necklace in the air; its constituent pearls dropped and scattered, rolling over the ground.

  “Look, gaobi, I have your pearls!” he called. His unpolished country accent was impenetrable even to the student interpreters, but I witnessed the reference cut close to Nina’s core. The man had referred to Nina’s high-set nose, a common insult thrown at usually uncomprehending Westerners. She responded with a torrent of indignant Mandarin and he leapt towards her again, this time producing a small knife. I started, and wished I might do something to protect her, but the surge of people between us pushed me ever closer to the Legation Quarter, and I could only watch helplessly. The blade glinted in the uncompromising sunlight, its clean tip aimed squarely at the pale skin exposed above the circular sweep of Nina’s summer dress. She stumbled as she stepped back, falling into the embrace of Hugo and James. The man ran on, dropping pearls as he sprinted, his head whipping round for one last look at his victim. The crowd closed densely around Nina, emitting sounds soothing and sympathetic. I struggled against the direction of those around me in an attempt to reach her, and quickly realized my efforts were futile. I saw Nina swallowed by the crowd and turned away, watching as the last of the grim-faced soldiers marched into the Legation Quarter.

  Nicholas and Nina seemed to expect me that evening. Their home offered none of the bright and hospitable warmth it had provided just the night before. Instead, a single dim light glowed in the drawing room; doors and windows were tightly closed against the night. Nina greeted me in embarrassed tones.

  “I suppose you know what happened,” she said quietly.

  “And I suppose you know why I am here,” I said. “First Secretary Fairchild has told me once again that both of you are very much welcome to stay with him.”

  “I hate to leave my home,” Nicholas said. “But we must do all we can to keep Nina safe. It is as the Chinese say: squid make fools of dragons in shallow waters. These are our shallow waters.” He gestured at the room around him, the scrolls of calligraphy hung carefully against white walls, the delicately painted vase atop a panelled cabinet, the jade lion roaring silently by the fireplace.

  “I never thought such a thing might happen,” Nina said, her voice small. “I understand that he might have seen me and thought that I…that I was one of them, a missionary or the wife of some senseless official. But I spoke to him, I tried to make him see that I was…I was different. It was as though he couldn’t hear me.”

  Nina looked at the floor as she spoke, her lips pulled tight and thin. Her posture, quiet and rounded, saddened me.

  “I am afraid we are all the enemy now,” I said. “That is what happens in wars. A terrible business.”

  “Let us not get carried away, Mr Scott,” Nicholas said. “This is far from a war. Nina and I shall go temporarily to the Legation Quarter until such a time as we might live here in absolute safety. I expect we shall be home within the week, isn’t that right, Nina?”

  “Yes, Father,” Nina said. She stepped suddenly towards me and I embraced her, let her head rest gently on my shoulder, noting how fragile her form felt against mine. Nicholas met my eye with grave expression.

  The Wards conducted no great ceremony upon leaving their home. Although I had increasingly come to believe that we faced a serious and possibly protracted conflict, I likewise found it hard to imagine the Wards would be absent from their hutung for long. The arrival of the troops should render it impossible for the Boxers to reach their ultimate target of the foreign population, I reasoned, and ought to repel them from Peking, perhaps allowing a half-peace to settle upon the city even as the hinterlands blazed. The household staff was instructed to stay and carry out a lighter roster of duties, an order to which they readily agreed. They had no desire to enter the Legation Quarter, where servants could expect to be packed into hellish accommodation with the native Christians, who sought sanctuary in the quarter after abandoning the tumultuous countryside. As Yang led us silently through the courtyard to the familiar front door with its golden lion knockers, Nicholas passed me a piece of thin, poor quality paper: a poster, torn at its corners and with a scrawl of chaotic characters coiling across it from top to bottom.

  “I saw this today. The translation is on the other side,” he said. “A little color for one of your stories, perhaps.”

  I glanced at the words written in Nicholas’ looping cursive:

  Their men are immoral, their women truly vile,

  For the Devils mother-son sex is the breeding style.

  I folded the paper and placed it in my pocket, reaching to take Nina’s small and hastily-prepared leather bag from Yang’s grip. The servant secured the door decisively behind us and the hutung lay gloomy and deserted, stretching desolate ahead of our party. We passed through the shadows of the city, the echoing trundle of our rickshaws bound by the walls of opaque courtyards, each corner causing us hold our breath, wondering if a Boxer lay in wait, Peking’s unnatural obscurity providing ideal shelter for the magical warriors.

  Dinner was drawing to a close when we arrived at Oscar Fairchild’s home. The First Secretary greeted us with earnest cordiality, and ordered his staff to arrange three additional chairs around the long table, where the dining party was looked over by a large and imperious portrait of Queen Victoria. The other guests watched with curiosity as we took our places at the m
ahogany table. They were three women: one I knew as Lillian Price, cousin of Fairchild’s wife Violet and heiress to an American railroad fortune on a coming-of-age tour of the Far East, while another was Beatrice Moore, wife of a British trade official and widely known as a something of a gossip. The other woman was unknown to me. Her clothes were homespun and plain, her hair greying and parted down the middle. She was, I suspected, a woman of God.

  “I am so very glad Mr Scott was able to change your mind,” Fairchild said to Nicholas.

  “Mr Scott made valiant efforts to do so,” Nicholas said. “But I am afraid it was rather the unfortunate events of the day that changed my position on the matter. Nina had quite a fright, as you might imagine.”

  “Oh, really?” Lillian Price said, smiling broadly. “I heard it was quite to the contrary, that the poor Boxer was more afraid after receiving such a scolding from Miss Ward!”

  The American girl rose then from her seat and assuredly shook Nicholas’ hand .

  “Lillian Price,” she declared with conviction.

  “How do you do,” Nicholas said.

  “Phoebe Franklin,” the other woman said. “I have come from Chihli.”

  A missionary, then, escaping the flames and fury of the rainless interior.

  Oscar Fairchild explained that while Nicholas had been designated his own room, Nina was expected to share Violet Fairchild’s bedroom with Lillian. The First Secretary had a fine house; not as large, of course, as the British Minister’s, but with a number of spare rooms to accommodate the needy. He had hosted Lillian Price for three weeks already, and she now remained indefinitely in the company of strangers, the arrival of the Boxers having stymied plans to join her brother in Tokyo. Miss Price had been joined under Fairchild’s roof by the American missionary two days previously. Oscar called for a servant to show Nina to the room, suggesting that she must be tired after a long day, without making explicit reference to the event that had led her to his door. I appreciated his tact, and I am sure that Nina, the stiffness of whose carriage hinted at some remaining shame, also liked that he avoided mention of the altercation.

  “I shall accompany her,” Lillian said, rising from her seat. “I have everything arranged just so, and a lovely screen to separate our two beds.”

  The pair followed a servant upstairs, and I heard Lillian ask Nina if she knew James Millington and Hugo Lovell.

  “Miss Ward should be safe here,” Oscar said to Nicholas. “I am so glad that you and your daughter have decided to join us. I very much hope that you shall both be comfortable here.”

  Nicholas thanked Oscar for his hospitality.

  “This is something of a luxury for Nina,” he said warmly. “Prior to this, the only time she has spent away from home has been in the most humble of villages, helping me with my work.”

  “Miss Ward seems a most spirited young woman,” Beatrice Moore said, fixing her round, brown eyes upon Nicholas. “How surprised we were to see a young woman shouting at a dangerous Boxer!”

  “Miss Ward was very brave,” Oscar said evenly. “Might I offer anyone a drink?”

  Nicholas scratched his beard and shook his head.

  “Time to retire, I think,” he said.

  Beatrice Moore, who had attended the dinner in her role as friend and confidante to the young Miss Price, also excused herself, saying she must return to her children whom she had left in the care of the servants at the Bloomfield household, where she and her husband had recently taken up residence. Beatrice had made evasive references to the inferiority of the Bloomfields’ domestic arrangements throughout the evening, taking care to make use of that special brand of English delicacy that avoided any outright criticism, any material utterance about which one might be accused of ill-feeling, while making clear one’s displeasure.

  “Well, Mr Fairchild, it is not in my nature to refuse the offer of a drink,” I said. “If it is no trouble to you, of course.”

  “Never.”

  I followed Oscar to the drawing room. To my surprise, the missionary Phoebe Franklin also decided to join us. Rapidly it transpired that Mrs Franklin desired neither port nor brandy, but rather wished to persuade Fairchild of the urgent need for the British government to quash Boxer activity in the countryside. Somewhat reserved at the dining table, Phoebe spoke now with assured righteousness, demonstrating the flame-blooded passion of the proselytizer as she detailed the horrors to which she and her heavenly colleagues had been subject.

  “The deaths I saw!” she cried. “They burnt down our church, but that was not enough, no, they mutilated the bodies of worshippers, they emptied their pockets for worthless coins and crumbs of mouldy bread.”

  “I know the French wish to take some kind of retaliatory action, but they must realize these deaths are insignificant if one is to consider the wider situation in China,” Oscar said, tapping ash from his pipe into a jade-trimmed dish. “We risk provoking a more violent reaction from the Boxers. God knows, we have unsettled the Chinese enough by parading our troops through the city today.”

  “The Boxers are murdering people who believe in the Christian God, Mr Fairchild. Is that something your government will really allow to continue?” Phoebe leaned forward in her chair, heavy jaw and high forehead glaring in the orange flicker of candlelight.

  My prejudices against the offices of both Phoebe and Oscar allowed me to listen detachedly to their arguments, half-agreeing with each interlocutor while experiencing no compulsion to demonstrate my support for either.

  “But most of the deaths are Chinese, Mrs Franklin,” Oscar responded. “Natives killing natives, and that always happens, regardless of whichever God they might profess to believe in.” He stopped, his neck craned towards the doorway. “Is that you, Miss Ward?”

  None of us had heard Nina approach, but now through the half-open door I perceived her standing uncertainly in the darkened corridor, her figure ghostly pale, a jug of water clutched between her fingers. Sheepishly, she stepped into the room.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Fairchild, I came downstairs for water and heard your conversation. I couldn’t help but to overhear…”

  “Quite right,” Oscar said, standing up and lifting the jug from her hands, setting it down upon a mahogany table. “Please, Miss Ward, sit with us a while. And in future you may call a servant for water. You are a guest in this house.”

  “Oh, really, I ought to sleep,” Nina began, but Oscar gestured once more for her to sit. She obeyed, taking a seat next to mine, offering me a small, familiar smile.

  “We have been talking, Miss Ward, about the deaths in the countryside. We are all in agreement that there is little we might do to prevent such terrible events,” Oscar said.

  Phoebe frowned.

  “While it is most distressing to see the deaths of so many innocent Chinese,” he continued, “these native killings are not an issue for our governments. The Chinese shall always kill each other, shall they not?”

  “Just as Englishmen shall always kill Englishmen, yes,” Nina said. “I suppose every man has his sunless side.”

  “And in any case the death of a Christian is a tragedy, regardless of the color of his skin or the language upon his tongue,” Phoebe said.

  Oscar, looking inquisitively towards Nina, did not respond to the missionary.

  “Yet the rates of murder witnessed here, Miss Ward, are not comparable with those of England,” he continued. “One cannot deny that life is rather less valued in China. That is not something the foreign powers might change, however strong our good will towards the Chinese.”

  “And yet the Boxers would not exist if the Europeans had not tried to impose their way of life on the Chinese,” Nina protested. “Is theirs not a natural reaction? Extreme, yes, but absolutely natural. Step on a dog’s tail and he shall bite you.”

  “Quite,” I said in support of Nina, but I was prevented from speaking mo
re by Phoebe Franklin.

  “Whatever do you mean, child?” the missionary said to Nina, her voice steady and stern. “There is absolutely nothing natural about the Boxers. We have worked to liberate the natives from devil worship. We have saved them from the superstitious culture that has allowed such nonsense as the Boxers to flourish. Invulnerability rituals, nefarious magic, innumerable gods. The religion of poverty and backwardness.”

  “I do not wish to speak out of turn,” Nina said, setting her spine tall against the high-backed chair, eyes traveling calmly between Oscar and Phoebe without a break in her young voice. “But I do not believe the converts have been saved from anything. They are dying precisely because they believe in a God they would not even know to worship if they had not been told to do so by foreigners.”

  “Miss Ward,” Phoebe said primly. “We enlightened the Chinese. We brought them faith and education and health where before there was only poverty, ignorance and sickness. I have heard such attitudes as yours among the heathens themselves, of course, but never from one of our own people. Such audacity!”

  “Mrs Franklin is right, is she not?” Oscar said, turning to face Nina, eyebrows arched questioningly above the glacial blue of his eyes. “The Boxers, with their magic and their martial arts, show just how primitive China would be without us. We build a railway track, they tear it up, we give them telegraph poles, they tear them down. It is as though they don’t want China to prosper.”

  “I do not believe they wish any ill on China, Mr Fairchild,” Nina said quietly. “Excuse me, I must go to bed.”

  “Nina, stay a while,” I suggested.

  “No, really, I must return to Miss Price. She waits for the water.”

  “Very well, Miss Ward,” Oscar said with sincere warmth. “But allow me, please, to tell you frankly that I find something refreshing in your ideas. Perhaps we might talk more tomorrow. I am new to China, as you know, and someone as knowledgeable as you might help me understand better this unusual situation that we face.”