Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

“Well, Mr J.,” I said mildly, “I shall be there myself to look after my tin, do you see.”

He gaped at me in a droll way, then inserted a finger under his wig and scratched his pate.

“The risks,” he said at last, “are hatrocious; ’opes I’ve made that clear?”

“Oh, yes,” I said in an off-hand way, for I was young then and brave, brave.

“Werry well, since I sees you’re intent on fetching up at the ‘cold cook-shop’, I’ll do my best for you.”

He fished out a great pen-knife, went to his scrutoire, as he called it, mended one pen after another, settled on one which would drop ink to his satisfaction and scratched and spluttered away with it until he had drafted some letters of introduction for me. I thanked him cordially but he wagged his great pink head with some sadness.

“Vishes you safe,” he said. “Leave your gear in my ware-’ouse — it’ll be there when you return.” It showed a rare and grateful sensitivity on his part to say “when” rather than “if”.

“Thankyou, Mr J.”

It was to be a long time indeed before I again saw my good friend, who had fostered in me a great love for England and all things English.

“‘You’,” I said to “You” two days later, “have you never longed for a life on the ocean wave, a home on the bounding deep? Does not the blood of your sea-faring ancestors surge in your veins at the very words?” His reaction was piteous: he fell upon his knees, cowering and quaking.

“Oh Sir, pray Sir, do not send me off to one of those floating hells to be flogged and keel-hauled and worse; I have been a good boy and kept myself clean as you bade me, I do not deserve such a fate, indeed I do not!”

“Come,” I said sternly, “pull yourself together. There is no talk of hell-ships and floating orphan-asylums: I am newly appointed a supernumerary officer in a fine, lavishly-fitted opium clipper, all mahogany and brass and famed for comfort and lavish food. Why, they call it the ‘Coffee Ship’ because of the generosity with which its people are treated. All officers are expected to have a servant; the Captain keeps a butler, two Chinese boys and a wife to boot, the owners tell me. Moreover, I have just purchased a share in the venture, subject to my being able to come to terms with the Captain: my only duties are to supervise the ‘schroffs’ and the ‘comprador’s’ accounts; yours are to keep my linen clean, fetch my victuals from the galley at suitable times and, when there is a grand dinner in the Captain’s Cabin, to help wait at table. I would not have thought this too arduous for a biddable foundling such as you. However, if the spirit of adventure does not stir in your breast, if you have no lust to sniff the scented breezes of tropic isles, if, in short, you pine to return to the Foundling Hospital …?”

“Sir,” he cried, “I shall follow you to the ends of the earth, I swear I shall, for you are a good and kind master, no boy could ask for a better. Let me, I beg you, go a-seafaring in your service.”

“Very well,” I said.

“May God bless you, Sir!” he said.

I could not, at that moment, recall the useful English word ‘ hrrumph ’, but I made a non-committal grunt which sounded quite like it. Even in those days, long ago, I was hard, hard and had no affection to waste on little charity-school bastards.

“Tell me your name,” I said curtly, “for I have never mastered it and I need to inscribe it upon the ship’s papers this afternoon.”

He sneezed.

“Good luck,” I said civilly, “but now, the name.”

He seemed to sneeze again. My patience ebbed.

“The name, if you have one!” I cried. “Sneeze later, in your leisure time. At present, give me your name.”

He scuttled under the counter, scrabbled there a while, fished out a wax-bespattered copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. There on the fly-leaf, many times repeated, was the name “Horace Ashley Urquhart”. Clearly, there could be no such name. I looked at him sternly.

“Do you realise, ‘You’, that boys who mock their masters are often whipped?”

“Sir, it is my name, I swear.” He sneezed again. In a little while I could say it myself, in a sneezing fashion, while ‘You’ kept his face solemn.

After a while we agreed that his name was Orace, which I could pronounce without seeming ridiculous, and off we went to the East India Docks.

The East India Docks presented a scene of indescribable confusion; it was as though the Tower of Babel had collapsed alongside the Slough of Despond. A turmoil of cursing stevedores, ship’s chandlers, longshoremen, wharfingers, slop-slop touts and other desperate wastrels jostled and reviled the decent money-lenders, lodging-house crimps and pickpockets who were about their lawful occasions, while the sewage-enriched waters of the Thames flopped fatly against the filthy sides of the ships. The snarlings and shrieking of obscene words were horrifying, deafening; it was like the Stock Exchange on a hot afternoon with gilt-edged shares tumbling, I was quite “taken aback”, as sailors say. “You” — Orace, I should say — seemed not to mind, he felt at home, he had survived countless dinner-times at his charity-school.

We fought our way along our particular Dock towards the good ship John Coram , with whose master, Captain Knatchbull, I had made a tentative compact, although not yet his acquaintance. He had a forty-five per-centum share of the venture and was ready to sell me a morsel of it for £1,750, along with the right to sail as a supernumerary officer, unpaid but with merely nominal duties, the right to officer’s food for myself and ship’s rations for my servant, and, above all, the concession to buy a chest or two of opium at the Calcutta auctions on my own account and to ship home the proceeds in the form of some fine Chinese porcelains.

As we approached the John Coram we were halted by a mob of fellows who were plainly salt-water seamen, staring at a huge notice, painted on a square of old sail-cloth and displayed beside the brig next before our vessel. “THIS SHIP, THE YANKEE CLIPPER ‘MARTHA WASHINGTON’ WILL BE FIRST THIS SEASON IN THE CANTON RIVER. A FEW PRIME HANDS MIGHT STILL BE TAKEN ON: COGMEN & SEA-LAWYERS NEED NOT APPLY. FREE SLOP-CHEST & FINEST GRUB ON THE 7 SEAS”.

On the next ship — our John Coram — a little, bearded man was dancing up and down and raving through a shouting-trumpet. As he finished, the captain of the Yankee ship appeared on his bridge, spread his arms open wide in the most confidential fashion and roared in turn.

“By Gosh and by Golly, are you bully-boys about to swallow that slop? Ask that old turtle-back to show you his holds: why, they’re spading the goddam dry-rot out of her with shovels and her keelson’s as soft as a dad-blamed cabbage!”

“By thunder!” bellowed back our Captain Knatchbull, “that’s all roly-moly and Yankee spit! Just cast your eye on his bottom, that’s all I ask, his bottom!” The seamen and I walked to the edge of the dock and, to be sure, there was something like a kitchen-garden growing on the planks of the Yankee ship, for all its gleaming brasswork at the rails.

“Now,” roared on the little British captain, “come aboard a good British ship like brave British tarpaulins and make your marks on my watch-bill and your fortunes, likely enough! I’ll warrant my ship’s heart of oak is as sound as your own!”