FLIGHT
I could do nothing but sit back in my seat and gape stupidly, while he
continued to look at me with an air of quiet, friendly amusement.
'Well, Mr. Ronald Mirlees,' he repeated, 'we had a close call to-night.
But for the extremely sandy way you joined in on my side it would have
been closer. Come, let me thank you for saving my life.'
I got a sufficient hold on my wits to rise and take the hand he held
out to me.
'I think it's I that have to thank you,' I said. 'I'm no invalid, but
I don't reckon to be able to sling full-grown men about my head like
Indian clubs. As to coming in on your side, it was more than any decent
human being could have done to sit tight and watch those blackguards
rob you.'
'Had they done so,' he said, gravely, 'it would have interfered with my
plans seriously--vitally, Mirlees!'
'But how do you come to know my name?'
'Dear me,' he replied, with a wonderfully winning laugh, 'if such a
well-known orientalist as yourself wants to visit that sort of den
_incognito_, he must assume a character--like this.' He took the long
Chinese robe between his thumb and forefinger and gave it a shake. 'But
one moment,' he continued, stepping to the side of the room and drawing
a card from a case. 'That's me.'
I took the pasteboard slip from his carefully browned hands and read:
MR. SAUNDERS PHILIPSON.
There was nothing else, not even the Chinese equivalent of our foreign
names which we usually print for the benefit of servants and native
tradesmen who cannot read English.
'Now,' said Philipson, waving me back to my settee and taking a
chair himself. 'We are in an uncommonly nasty hole. That much is
self-evident. Two or three of the men I saw on the floor of that den
to-night looked as if they were never going to get up again, and the
fellow I was obliged to use as a weapon of defence was certain stone
dead before I touched him. A melancholy business, no doubt, but I would
sooner they than we.'
'I emptied every chamber of my gun,' I said. 'And it was too near to
miss. I don't know how many deaths there are among that crowd, but
there are six wounds.'
'Quite so. That means a most awkward investigation. Unless we take
steps we may both find ourselves in queer street. You see the force of
my reasoning?'
'Doesn't require much seeing. What do you suggest?'
'We must avoid appearing at that investigation.'
'Lie low, you mean, till it blows over. If you can put me up here for a
day or two--'
'Utterly hopeless,' said Philipson. 'There were men there who know me
well. The car must have been recognised. You too, I believe, left a
revolver behind. It will be simplicity itself to trace the pair of us.'
'Then let's go to the police and make a clean breast of it. After all,
you were the first attacked.'
'I was; but the evidence will lie heavily the other way. Those people
have their story composed and rehearsed by now, backed by a dozen
provably independent witnesses. Depend upon it. They will swear we
provoked a quarrel, and we ourselves must admit that we did the
killing, without a casualty on our side. It would look black against us
even in a consular court.'
I had to admit that the pronounced likelihood of this notion had
already struck me.
'Moreover,' he continued, eyeing me closely, 'I have the very strongest
reasons for not wishing my dealings with that gang to come out.'
'What are we to do, then?'
'Cut. We must be out of this house and away inside ten minutes,' said
Saunders Philipson with decision.
'H'm. If they can set the police after us they can have the stations
watched.'
'No need to depart by rail. Fortunately there is the river. We are
near it here. I have my own launch moored off the French Bund. In half
an hour I will undertake to get you well on your way to Wusung, and
after that, barring typhoons, we can please ourselves, up coast or
down.'
I shall have to say it before long, and I may as well say here that
there was something about this man entirely new to my experience. I had
been strangely attracted towards him even through a marvellously clever
Chinese disguise, and the feeling was intensified tenfold now that I
saw him as he really was. Before the week was out I had realised that
he was long and away the most remarkable man I had ever met, and as
this narrative develops it will be seen I wasn't alone in my opinion.
There was something about Saunders Philipson that came along like a
great burning enthusiasm and swept up your loyalty and your love,
something that literally compelled trust. It was his way, when his
friends were wavering and he wanted to tune up their resolve, to talk
to them; let him talk to you for five minutes and your brain began to
reject the possibility that he could fail.
I must have looked still undecided now, for he leaned over the
blackwood table between us and spoke, and as he spoke, my doubts melted
away like mist under the morning sun.
'Trust me, Mirlees,' he concluded, the words coming out in a crescendo
of intensity. 'Trust me, and by God, you shall never have reason to
regret it.'
'Very well,' I said. 'It's putting ourselves in the wrong, but I'm game
if you are.'
Philipson took my hand again and wrung it. 'We are going to be friends,
I can feel,' he said. 'Now, we shall look less suspicious if we are
both in the same costume, and though few would believe it, I can turn
you into a Chinaman quicker than I can get myself back into a European.
Come into this room.'
I followed him along the passage to a little chamber curiously like the
dressing room of a theatre, and there, with the help of Philipson and
his boy and a pile of native clothes and dyes and artificial pigtails,
I was soon as presentable a Celestial as it is possible for a European
to make himself. Philipson chuckled as he watched me hurry into the
Chinese dress.
'Not your first appearance in this rôle, Mirlees?' he said.
'Not by miles,' I replied, frogging up the grey _maokua_ at my left
shoulder. 'Fan, pipe--I think that's everything.'
In a few moments Philipson had put back the native touches on his own
exterior, two ricshas appeared at the door as if from nowhere, and we
were whirling off towards the French Bund. Nobody made any attempt
to molest us, but I had an uncomfortable sense--perhaps a fanciful
one--that our movements were being noted; at any rate, when we came to
the water's edge it was clear enough this was the case. There were two
natives lounging on the wharf. They gave no sign that they had even
seen us arrive, but for all that I noticed, when I looked back from the
sampan in which we were pulling out to the mooring place of the launch
that both these loafers had disappeared.
I heard Philipson laugh softly to himself. 'You saw that, Mirlees?' he
said. 'Those fellows have gone back to report.'
'But _they_ couldn't know anything about the dust-up of to-night?'
'Not yet, perhaps, but they very soon will. And our friends of the
opium-den will know that we have left by the launch, which those two
had been detailed to watch.'
'Perhaps I could help better, Philipson,' I said 'if I knew exactly
what we _are_ up against.'
'An organisation, Mirlees,' he replied. 'A large and powerful and
highly unscrupulous one, too I fear. But the story is a long one, and
unless I am much mistaken our time for the next hour or so is going to
be fully occupied with more pressing matters.'
On board the launch, a long clean-lined craft and, as I knew before
I'd been two minutes in her of great engine power, we found a native
on guard. The fellow challenged us sharply as our sampan drew near.
Philipson's answer was to order him to start up and cast off moorings;
we boarded the launch, paid the sampan man, and a moment later had
swung away down stream without lights. The engine purred gently and
musically, but a big arrowhead of foam that lay out at once from our
bow proved we were moving fast, if quietly.
'Luckily,' remarked Philipson, 'I had anticipated some such little
upset as this. The launch has been held ready day and night for the
past week, and I have no doubt Ah Sing at least is glad matters have
come to a head. Eh, Ah Sing?'
The native engineer looked back from his specklessly tended charge, and
we heard him take a long inbreath of gratification.
'Engine b'long all-same numbah-one plopah,' he said. 'Plenty
sparkum-juice hab got. Can go Canton if'm likee.'
'Perhaps so,' said Philipson, 'but I do not think we will, although it
is pleasant to reflect that we could if we chose.'
'It must be pretty pleasant altogether to own a plaything like this,' I
said, running an admiring eye along her beautifully stream-lined hull.
'No doubt,' assented Philipson. 'But the worst of a modern invention is
that unless you corner it, anybody else can use it too. That applies to
other things besides motor boats, such as----'
Philipson had taken the tiller and was steering with a coolness and
dash that reminded me forcibly of his driving. Also he seemed to be
gifted with the eyes of a cat. We shot in amongst barges, sampans,
junks, tugs, steamers--all the medley of eastern and western craft that
crowd the winding Whangpu River--some of them lighted, others a mere
blotch of deeper black against the dark stream; some of which we missed
by inches, others literally scraped with our streaks. As we rounded the
curve and headed eastward I noticed that Philipson had his eyes fixed
on the north bank in a long tense stare.
'Telephones,' he said, shortly.
'Eh? Oh, you mean----'
'That the gentlemen who were watching this launch have probably
telephoned to the headquarters of the gang, which are, I believe, not
far from that den where we had such an unpleasant experience to-night.
It is admirably up-to-date of such people to adopt western devices,
but it may prove awkward enough to us. Now it only remains to be seen
whether they have got the information through quick enough to be of
use.... H'm, I feared as much. You see what I mean, Mirlees, when I
say that launches are a game two sides can play at. They must have had
theirs waiting too.'
We had come to a pool where the stream broadens greatly and is deep
enough to float ocean-going ships close in shore. We saw several fast
at their wharves on the south side. The north bank was crusted thick
with native shipping, and between shore lights and lights afloat the
river here was thrown into a wan, treacherous illumination. I had
followed Philipson's stare with my eyes: now I saw what he was looking
at. Something swift and black had detached itself from the mass and was
shooting out across our course.
'Ah Sing--engine,' said Philipson quietly. 'Mirlees, take the tiller.
Bring us as near them as you dare, but for God's sake do not give us a
leak, or we are done. Here is a revolver. Remember, though, we must not
risk the noise of shots unless hard pressed.'
I did as I was bid, while Philipson himself took the boathook and
crawled forward, where he crouched low on our decked-in bow. Soon I
saw the wisdom of his plan. It was typical of the man. His mind always
seemed to be made up the instant a fresh problem presented itself, and
his policy was usually a sudden original move, bold to the point of
impudence. On this occasion it met with brilliant success. There were
at least five men on the other launch, against our three, and had we
merely tried to dodge them, it's likely we should have been grappled,
boarded, and overpowered, or at least forced to use firearms and thus
bring out the river police. As it was, the very unexpectedness of our
attack threw the enemy into confusion and enabled us to get clean away,
so that watchers on shore could hardly have been aware of the little
drama that was being played in midstream. What actually happened is
this.
I ran our boat straight at the other, then at the last moment put the
helm hard down. A figure had sprung up in the bows of the enemy craft,
clearly intending to leap aboard of us, but he had reckoned without
Philipson and his boathook. Philipson also sprang to his feet, caught
the opposing bow-man full in the stomach, and hurled him backwards
into the river. There were the odds evened by one at the very outset.
The boats came together with a loud scraping clatter, and I saw two
natives seize our gunwale while a third, erect behind them, drew back
for a leap. Ah Sing pluckily gripped one man by the throat and dragged
him on to our boat, where the pair tumbled into the well and rolled
over and over, fighting like terriers. I was holding revolver and
tiller in my right hand. With my left I struck out, caught the second
gunwale man between the eyes and had the satisfaction of seeing him
stagger back, half overturning the man behind him. The check was only
momentary, however, for the fellow was up and inboard of us before I
could strike again. I saw a short club raised above my head, and threw
up my left arm in defence, but I never felt the blow fall. The man was
suddenly snatched away from in front of me. Philipson, having finished
his business in the bows, had rushed aft and seized my attacker by
the waist and lifted him off his feet as if he had been a child. Then
for the second time that evening I witnessed an exhibition of this
man's superhuman strength. He gave the body a sudden swing and hurled
it back on to the other boat with such terrific force that the fellow
overshot the mark altogether, sweeping one of his comrades overboard
with him. Next, pretty much as if he had been playing skittles, Mr.
Saunders Philipson stooped into the well, where Ah Sing had finally
got a strangle hold on _his_ antagonist, detached the two men, picked
our enemy up and threw him far out into the stream, where his sudden
yell was cut short in a great splash. The whole thing was over in a few
seconds, most of the enemy in the water, and the one native left aboard
of their boat unable to do more than throttle his engine and back and
circle to pick up the men overboard. We had broken away, and shot down
stream with a good start. Our leader put back the boat hook in the
rack under our gunwale and briefly inquired if anybody was hurt.
Ah Sing rubbed his ear with a hand that came away blood-stained from it.
'Dat piecee men,' he observed judicially, 'plenty stlong toosum-box hab
got. Him muchee bitum!'
'I will dress that for you in a minute, Ah Sing,' said Philipson
gravely. 'Give me the tiller, Mirlees. We are by no means out of the
wood. Those fellows may go ashore and telephone Wusung to have a police
boat waiting for us. Or they may--yes, by Jove, they are!'
I peered out astern, straining my ears. It was true. The other launch
was coming swiftly down stream in our wake.
'You think they can catch us?' I said.
'You saw for yourself the speed of that boat when she came out from the
bank. I know her of old. The one thing on the river that can beat her
is our own, and that not by a great deal. With the twist of the river I
question if we shall have the advantage at all.'
He dived forward through the cabin and returned with a stout square
board, which, with the help of Ah Sing, he wedged firmly athwart-ship
behind our engine.
'Bullets,' he explained. 'It may take the sting off them, at least, and
save us from getting winged. They will not dare to fire on this part
of the river, for fear of bringing the police about their ears--it is
obvious they do not want that any more than we do. But when we come to
the empty reaches lower down they may not be so squeamish. You know
the river, Mirlees?'
'Pretty fair.'
'Right. It is half ebb now. We draw barely two feet. Do not be afraid
to go inside the beacons if there is a good cut-off to be effected. I
had better dress Ah Sing's ear while I have the chance. Come along, my
faithful fellow.'
I sat well down to the steering that boat out of Whangpu River. It was
the reverse of a pleasure. We were soon come to the deserted reaches
Philipson had spoken about, and I wondered how long it would be before
the boat behind began to shoot. I could hear the hum of their engine
above ours--they were clearly gaining on us. The frequent bends were
robbing us of our advantage of superior speed, and steer straight as I
might I couldn't prevent it. Many times have I cursed the snakiness of
Whangpu River when crawling up it in steamers and impatient to be at
the end of a voyage, but never had I cursed it as I did that night.
Philipson's head appeared through the low doorway as he crept aft. At
the same instant a sharp crack rang out behind, and a long white streak
flashed on to the inside of our gunwale. Philipson bobbed back: for one
fearful moment I thought he was hit. But it wasn't that. He reappeared
with a Winchester rifle.
'This must be kept down, Mirlees,' he said, 'or at least replied to.
Crouch when I fire--the flash will give them a good aiming point.'
He laid the barrel across our gunwale, which, so smoothly were the
engines running made a fair rest, and fired. There was no result beyond
that two shots came from the other boat and we heard a bullet sing over
our heads.
'They too, it seems,' said Mr. Saunders Philipson deliberatively, 'have
fallen into the error of aiming high. Now the great thing in life,' he
observed as he reloaded, 'is to ... be wise ... from our failures ...
so!'
As a vindication of Philipson's philosophy it was immense, though I
was a good deal too scared to appreciate philosophy at the time. It
isn't pleasant to be pot-shotted, even in the vague light of night,
particularly when, apart from the risk to our own skins, one unlucky
bullet might have ruined our engine or our hull and left us at the
mercy of a shipload of bloodthirsty pirates. There was a shriek of pain
from behind us, followed by furious yells, and the firing held off.
'That has balanced the account for the time being,' said Philipson,
resuming the tiller himself. 'But I have a horror of bloodshed. If I
can possibly get away without firing another shot you may trust me to
do so.'
He was equal to his word. He handled that superb boat in a way that
made my best efforts look childish, and though after a while our
pursuers loosed off at us again, we were drawing too far ahead for the
gunning to be deadly. The stream continues to wind until it meets the
sea, but under Philipson's hand our course couldn't have been far short
of a straight line; curve after curve he sheared away with consummate
skill, as if he could not only see in the dark but sense the depth of
water under us; and though once we did plough mud with our keel, the
check was no more than momentary, and we had forged over into deep
water again. Once, too, we burst clean through a string of lighters
dropping down on the tide blind as ourselves, and I heard their towrope
rattle sharply along the roof of our cabin as we shot under it.
At last we came abreast of the junk fleet you can generally count on
finding anchored at the mouth of the river. Beyond that, open sea
and safety. Thanks to Philipson's brilliant boatcraft we had drawn
so far ahead of the other launch that the noise of her engine was
indistinguishable from ours, and I should have reckoned that with one
good spurt we might now show our enemies a clean pair of heels. Much to
my surprise, Philipson ordered Ah Sing to throttle down to half speed.
'It is risky, admittedly,' he said, 'but it will be safer in the long
run.'
A hoarse shout of triumph announced that the other launch had sighted
us. They came on cock-a-hoop, gaining fast and firing as they came.
Philipson now opened our throttle bit by bit, and we drew away, heading
south-east. In five minutes our speed was at full again, in fifteen the
sounds of pursuit were dying in the distance, until we could hear them
no longer. My companion now took a sharp turn, doubling back north-east
for a minute or two, then shut off our engine altogether; and there we
lay, rising and falling gently on the dark swell of the outer sea.
'You know where we are, Mirlees?' said Philipson suddenly.
'I should say off the south point of the old Quarantine Island,' I
replied.
'Exactly. And where do you suppose the other boat is?'
'God knows. But what are we hanging about here for?'
'In order to give our pursuers a good lead on their totally false
scent. As soon as they are well past we will get along. What were they
to suppose when I allowed them to view us making for the south end of
the island? Obviously that we intended to go down coast--Ningpo, I
fancy, is the port that will occur to them, as there is no likelihood
of weather. They will pursue for some way on the chance of our petrol
giving out. Then, when they find they do not pick up the sound of us
again, they will assume we are clear away south. They will return at
once to headquarters and warn Ningpo by telegraph--they have agents
there, never fear. Meanwhile, it behoves us to select some other
destination.'
'Where d'you propose?'
'What do you say to Nanking?'
'That must be a day's run, even at the best pace we can screw out of
her.'
'Why not? We have the fuel, and you may depend I have not been so
careless as to come away without food. Also, the farther afield
we go, the less likely are we to be available for the inevitable
inquiry into that awkward affair of to-night. Nanking appeals to me
as the ideal place for our purpose. It is a huge straggling city with
miles of country within its walls. It offers every facility for a
sudden departure by rail or water, should we have warning of pursuit.
The police will hardly look for us there, since the only people in
a position to give information regarding our movements will be of
opinion--for the time at least--that we are down coast. You, should you
find that the shooting affray has blown over, may return to Shanghai by
train at any time you like. I would advise you not to be in a hurry,
though. I am afraid, Mirlees, that by your magnanimous rescue of me
to-night you have made yourself obnoxious to some of the most dangerous
people in Asia. Were you to return to Shanghai now, I frankly could not
promise you a peaceful life--or for that matter life at all.'
It wasn't a particularly comforting argument, but it struck me as being
sound. 'Nanking be it then,' I said. 'We'll see to the future later.'
'And a wise decision, in my view,' said Philipson cheerfully, opening
the throttle and turning the boat's head north.
We skirted the Quarantine Island on its seaward shore, then headed
west for the estuary of Yangtze River. Philipson steered by the stars
and checked his course roughly by a pocket compass, but he would have
needed to be a pretty lubberly navigator to miss that enormous mark.
Suddenly he looked up.
'Forgive me, Mirlees,' he said. 'The rush of events has caused me to
forget my duties as host. Just go into the cabin and help yourself to a
meal. Ah Sing will give you everything you want.'
Now ravenously hungry, I didn't wait for a second invitation. The cabin
of the launch I found to be a surprisingly roomy apartment, with a
handy collapsible table amidships and broad lockers lining the sides.
Ah Sing was evidently schooled to do more than run engines, for he had
put up a capital collation of fresh cold meats and salad and white
wine, laid out amongst spotless napery and dainty table furniture.
In the roof of the cabin there was an electric globe which Ah Sing
switched on after carefully shutting the after door, and I noticed
mattresses and sheets and pillows rolled up on the ends of the lockers
against bed-time. Altogether, this launch would have been a cosy home
for a holiday, let alone a craft to run for your life in. I fell to,
ate like a savage, then put on a pipe and went aft to relieve Philipson
at the tiller.
All night we sped up into that greatest of China's waterways, the three
of us standing successive tricks of two hours each, and by daybreak
we had pierced the estuary to a point where the shores-a green-brown
line low down on either bow--began to be visible again. Mile after
mile we flung behind us; more and more we seemed to be in a river
rather than a sea. As the vast estuary narrowed, so all the divergent
tracks of up-river traffic drew in together; now we passed within
hail of an occasional steamer, and before long saw away to starboard
the eternal procession of junks as they hugged the north shore to
avoid the down-rolling volume of the stream. Philipson's knowledge of
the river seemed to be exact to the last detail; many of the shore
villages he named as we swept past were quite unknown to me, though I
recognised the Treaty Port of Chinkiang on our starboard bow early in
the afternoon, and wanted no telling when, at the fall of dusk, we drew
near the end of our long stage.
Well throttled down, we crept past Nanking Bund, giving it a wide
berth, then headed straight in for a creek Philipson had chosen as
being secluded enough for our business. Here we halted in midstream
while the pair of us changed into European clothes, and gently paddled
the launch inshore. You couldn't have hit on a better place for a
furtive landing. There was a queer old inn, big, rambling, well tucked
away, with its garden running down to the willow-shrouded bank, and
water enough in the creek to allow of our putting the launch right in,
so that we could step from the cambered roof of her cabin on to the
grey lichened garden wall. We gave out to the native proprietress that
we were merchants down stream from Hankow on a vacation, and engaged a
bedroom each--Ah Sing would sleep on board--and a sitting room in the
wing of the building overlooking the water; and there, after we had
fed, Philipson pushed a box of cigarettes towards me and sat back in
his chair with a strangely serious air.
'I owe you an apology, Mirlees,' he began.
'What on earth for?'
'I am afraid I have misled you.'
He sprang up, glided to the door as noiselessly as a cat, and flung it
open. I had heard nothing myself, but I now caught a glimpse of the
lady of the house withdrawing, feather dust-whisk in hand, to the far
end of the landing.
'Note one,' muttered Philipson, closing the door and resuming his seat.
'That woman needs watching. But, as I was saying, I fear I have not
been altogether frank. I led you to suppose that I was coming here
to escape the consequences of our little brawl last night. That was
only partly true. This Nanking journey is only the first stage of a
much longer one I am making--so long that the distance would probably
surprise you.'
'H'm. _How_ long?'
'Only time can measure the exact length,' said Saunders Philipson, 'but
I should estimate it at nearer three thousand miles than two.'