“A day like this is enough to break any man’s heart. I haven’t the pluck
now to open a jackpot on four kings, feeling certain somebody’d hold
four aces and the joker against me. As you know, we two went shooting,
and left the Chief to grub about the native city for curios. When we
landed we hired two coolies to carry the drinks and chow, which they
slung on a pole between them, and off we went to the right among the
paddy-fields. There wasn’t a thing in the paddy except frogs, snakes,
and cockie-ollie birds, so we went up towards the hills. Nothing to be
found there, but after passing a small village we got into some scrub
and long grass, when up got a quail. It flew to my left rear, and I let
him have one barrel. Then he passed right behind me, and I let him have
the other barrel, the contents of which went smack into the lunch-basket
and blew it to bits. In the excitement I’d never noticed that our
coolies were only a few yards behind me. There was instantly no end of a
hullabaloo, and one coolie lay on the ground kicking and rubbing himself
furiously, what time both of them kept up a most damnable screaming. I
ran up to see what was the matter, and saw that his chest was covered
with blood; but all my efforts at getting a look at his wound were
unavailing, as he would keep rubbing his hands over his chest. My own
opinion is that he hadn’t got at most more than one pellet in him; but I
had no further time to look after him, because we were in a few seconds
surrounded by the men, women, children, lunatics, and incurably leprous
of the neighbouring village. They got to hustling us, and things looked
ugly. All of ’em were singing out something in Chinese, and when they
started pulling me about I got nasty and let out at ’em. Then they took
my gun away, and by this time we were nearly crushed by the crowds round
us. It was no use to create international complications by letting ’em
have a few charges of No. 6, so we concluded to go without resisting to
their village and see the matter out. So the howling, stinking mob
conducted us to their village, and led us through filthy pig-infested
lanes to an open space near the centre of the village, in which stood a
dismal banyan tree, under whose shade a baby or two and some half-dozen
hens and scraggy pigs were grubbing. A very benevolent-looking,
grey-bearded Chinaman approached, and from the increased yells of our
conductors we concluded that he was a man of some importance. He calmly
surveyed us for quite a while, and spoke to our furiously shouting
accusers in a calm and passionless manner. The wounded coolie was
brought forward amid more shouts and gesticulations, and our ancient
friend spoke a few words to him in a rather off-hand manner.
“We were getting a bit tired of all this hoop-hooraying when suddenly
our ancient friend turned to me and said, ‘Say, what you goin’ to do
about it?’ We were both pretty surprised at hearing him speak English,
but I was jolly glad to find someone could understand us. I explained
that the whole thing was an accident, that the man wasn’t much hurt, and
that now, as we understood each other, we might go back to the ship, as
having lost our tiffin, we didn’t care to do any more shooting that day.
Our genial friend smiled kindly on us, and said it would be very hard to
make his poor uneducated fellow-villagers understand that the shooting
had not been done on purpose. He explained that no Chinaman was such a
fool as to suppose that anyone with sense would shoot at a bird flying,
that a bird could by no possibility be shot unless sitting still, and
that my firing into the luncheon-basket was only a pretext to kill both
coolies when they least expected it. He remarked, moreover, ‘We’ve got
your gun, and I guess it’s worth at least forty dollars gold, so you’d
better pay up if you want to get back to your ship. We know that in time
you’ll be rescued by a landing-party, but we think you’d prefer to pay
up rather than spend a night or two in our flea-infested village and be
laughed at by your messmates when you do return.’ I got pretty angry at
this and said, ‘I wish I had a few blue-jackets and marines now, and
we’d knock hell out of your old village!’
“The ancient Chinaman smiled and said, ‘In your country you have an
Employers’ Liability Act by which you’d have to pay for this coolie’s
injury.’ We found then that we had a man of education to deal with, so I
said I’d pay within reason but that I was dead keen to get aboard, and
didn’t care if I never went shooting again in China.
“Then we got on to the question of money; I had two silver dollars and a
ten and five dollar Hong Kong note. My Chinese friend explained that
paper money was of no use to villagers, that if I handed over the lot to
him he’d pay the two silver dollars to the wounded man in compensation,
that later on he might manage to negotiate the paper money (for the good
of the village), and that if I’d give twenty more dollars on the morrow
to his representative he’d return my gun. At the same time he added that
if the navigator attempted to use his gun and resist that the villagers
would eat us raw.
“So we had to climb down. We left the village escorted by a howling mob,
and now I’ve got to pay twenty Mexican dollars to that smooth-tongued
English-speaking Chinaman before I get my 12-bore back.
“Ah Hing, give me another whisky-and-soda.”
--------------
Again the sun shines on the turbid pea-soup river, the steaming
paddy-fields, and sunburnt backs of the sweating trackers as they
painfully tow the junks up-stream. A continuous stream of junks drifts
down the river, steered by clumsy rudders and big sweeps; now and then a
Hakka boat passes laden with lime made by burning oyster-shells, and
occasionally a steam launch, flying the Chinese flag, belonging to the
Salt Commissioners or Imperial Chinese Customs. The sun is now mounting
high in the heavens, when a sampan puts off from the shore and goes
alongside the British gunboat. A grey-bearded man steps up the gangway
and, handing a double-barrelled gun to the quarter-master, says, “Give
that to the doctor, please, and tell him that there is someone waiting
to see him.”
The quarter-master grunts, as much as to say, “Well, I’m damned!” He
hands the gun to the surgeon in the wardroom and says, “Chinaman to see
you, sir.”
“Show him down, quarter-master,” replies the surgeon, and the venerable
Chinaman is conducted to the wardroom.
“Well,” says the surgeon, “what’s to prevent me, now I’ve got my gun
back, from having you pushed over the side into your sampan and being
told never to come near the ship again?”
The Chinaman smiles and says, “Nothing, except a foolish sense of honour
which prevents you from getting out of a promise you’ve once made, even
if you know you’ve been badly swindled. When I sent your gun down to you
I knew you might have me thrown into the river, and with some justice on
your side, but I also knew that, being a white man, you would stick to
your promise and pay me the twenty dollars you agreed on yesterday. I
don’t admire you for it, but I know your Western ways.”
“Look here,” says the surgeon, “you speak devilish good English; here’s
your twenty dollars, and now we’re quits. Have a drink, and tell us
something about yourself.”
“I will,” replies the Chinaman, “but whether you believe it or not
matters little. I call myself Fung Wa Chun,” and the story of Fung Wa
Chun as heard by the surgeon remains to be told.
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