Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

He began to walk down the stairs.

“Good luck,” she said again.

As the national anthem started, a great cheer went up. The crowd in front of him was a sea of red, white, and blue. They had gathered in their thousands, in front of the consulate. Field shifted to the right to get a better view.

He did not believe he had been followed from Crane Road, but there were so many people about that anyone who wished to tail him without being observed could easily have done so.

The sergeant, mounted on his horse in front of the guard of honor, shouted, “Three cheers for the king and emperor,” and the crowd around Field erupted. “Hip, hip, hooray!”

Field helped a man who was struggling to get his young boy on his shoulders and rescued his Union Jack from the ground.

The nearest troops were the Sikhs, dressed in white, their buckles and bayonets gleaming in the midday sun.

A portly, middle-aged woman, with a tiny flag tucked into the band of her hat, turned to him with tears in her eyes. “Look at the marines,” the woman exhorted him and whoever else was listening, gripping his arm. “Aren’t they absolutely marvelous ?”

The crowd began to sing the national anthem. Field watched the marines, who were ramrod straight and completely aware of the splendid, heartening spectacle they were creating, a reminder to every inhabitant of this city of the power of the empire, upon which their fortunes rested.

He checked the revolver in his pocket as a group of drunken young men surged forward, crushing those at the front as they attempted to drown out everyone around them with the noise of their singing.

Field edged forward, pushed himself closer to an elderly couple. They were talking to each other excitedly in German, the woman’s face shielded behind an old-fashioned broad-brimmed blue hat. They were a wealthier version of the Schmidts and he excused himself as he shoved past them, fingering his revolver once more.

The crowd was thicker at the front, made up mostly of parents who’d fought to give their children the best view of the Bund. The white rope was ten yards from the line of Sikhs and only about a hundred from the gate of the consulate itself.

A gun went off as the national anthem came to an end-the midday salute.

He could see the sweat on the faces of the Sikhs as they stood to attention, their rifles now by their sides, the tips of the bayonets just above their ears.

There was another shout from the sergeant and they began to cheer, their turbans raised aloft on their bayonets. “Sat Sri Akal!”

Field pushed through the crowd again. He almost tripped over two young boys kneeling beneath the rope barrier.

As he walked toward the consulate building, a Sikh policeman, also dressed in white, hurried toward him. Field was sweating violently. “Richard Field, S.1,” he said, holding open his wallet to display his identity card.

The man examined it more thoroughly than he needed to, perhaps for the benefit of the onlookers. Then he stepped away from the rope to let him pass. Field breathed a little more easily. He crossed the road and looked back at the crowd, which stretched to the line of masts and funnels on the quay behind and for as much as a mile in each direction.

He passed the line of marines and reached another group of Sikh guards outside the front gate.

“Field, S.1,” he said, holding out his wallet once more.

The man he had approached was a sergeant, with a mature, confident face and a long, bushy white mustache. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “But I’m afraid we have strict orders not to allow anyone through today.”

“Charles Lewis is expecting me,” Field said, his voice taut, sweat breaking out on his forehead again.

The Sikh continued to shake his head. “No one in here, sir, I’m sorry. C in C’s orders.”

“The C in C?”

The Sikh pointed to the man standing in the center of the dais overlooking the gardens, an extension of the terrace to the side of the consulate. He was dressed in white, with a large triangular, feathered hat. “Admiral Sir Edward Alexander Gordon Brewer, Commander in Chief, China Station.”

“I’m from S.1, Sergeant. I’d appreciate it if you could send someone to find Charles Lewis and get him to come down here to collect me.”

The Sikh was still shaking his head.

“I’m from S.1, Sergeant,” Field repeated slowly, as if the man was hard of hearing. “If you don’t want to be going home without your pension, I would get off your backside and go and find Charles Lewis. Now!”

Field had barked the order so loudly that a couple of women on the near end of the dais turned. The C in C was giving his address, but the wind was in the wrong direction. Field could not hear a word he was saying.

The Sikh was angry, but after a brief hesitation, he turned away and spoke urgently in his own language to one of his subordinates, who ran up the gravel path and through the big door at the top of the steps.

He was gone only a few minutes and returned to whisper in the ear of his superior, who then stood aside and opened the gate.

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

Lewis was waiting in the hallway beneath a portrait of Disraeli.

“Good afternoon,” Field said.

Lewis didn’t reply. He led Field up a black and white stone staircase, past a series of oil portraits of previous commanders in chief of the China Station.

He stopped to allow Field through two enormous gold and blue doors and into a ballroom that was a more magnificent version of the Majestic, the wooden floor polished, huge mirrors interspersed with more portraits. He shut the doors quietly behind him.

Field walked to the end of the room and looked down over the head of the commander in chief at the dignitaries gathered on the lawn. The junks and sampans bobbed up and down on the wake of the big metal steamers. The epaulets on the commander in chief’s white uniform sparkled in the sunlight.

Field turned and it was a moment before he made out Lu standing behind Lewis, close to a small door in the far wall.

The Chinese approached, his eyes never leaving Field’s face, his anger evident in every slow, deliberate step.

“One day, Mr. Field,” Lu said, “none of you will be here. The… greed will hasten the end of the Europeans. But who can blame Mr. Geoffrey and his friends for wishing to use to the full the opportunities while they may?” For the first time, Field saw the hatred that burned in those small eyes, not just for him but for all of them, Lewis included. “You dare to summon me here?”

“I didn’t summon you.”

Lu tilted his head to one side. “You believe you will leave Shanghai alive?”

“That is for you to decide.”

Lu sighed. “And what of the girl, the boy?”

Field did not answer.

“You come to my house. You steal my possessions. Mine. Mine. In my city. In Shanghai.” Lu shook his head, then gave a cough that racked his body, making him seem momentarily vulnerable.

Field waited. “Natasha and the boy are all I want.”

“You’re insane,” Lewis said.

“Insane,” Lu repeated, alongside him. “Yes.”

“I want-”

“You dare to bargain with me, in this city? I have many thousand men, and you believe you can escape ?”

“I want the woman and the boy, that is all.”

Lu stared at him, and this time Field held his gaze. “Yes,” the Chinese said. “The girl is perhaps too old already, but the young boy… so vulnerable.” Field felt the tautness in his throat.

“The boy… so much life ahead and yet, yes, still so vulnerable.” Lu raised his hand to his cheek and scratched it idly, portly fingers against poor skin.