Read Online China Flyer by Porter Hill - Free Book Online

Flyer.
    ‘Captain,’ whispered another voice from a doorway. ‘You like a very good surprise this evening, Captain sahib ?’
    ‘Captain’? Horne remembered he was still wearing his uniform. How conspicuous he must look in this crowd. He stepped closer into the shadows. Spotting the swinging sign he had been looking for, he removed his hat and ducked his head to miss the low beam as he stepped down from the street to the doorway.
    Colonials of every nationality frequently attempted to reproduce aspects of their homeland in faraway countries. The Watsons had created Rose Cottage in Bombay. Horne had seen English gardens in Goa; the Liverpool Card Parlours in Surat; the Manchester Dog Pit in Hyderabad. But the London Tavern in the Black Town was the closest thing to an English alehouse he had ever seen outside England.
    Low ceilings. Pegged floor strewn with sawdust. Even British tavern smells which permeated the depth of one’s soul. Everything about the London Tavern seemed authentic . The one clue that this was India and not England was that turbans dotted the merry crowd of Company revellers drinking ale from tankards.
    Accustoming his eyes to the dim lighting, Horne espied Jingee waving at him from across the room and began picking his way through the drinkers. He had not yet reached the wooden bench by the wall when Jingee began reporting. ‘I found Fanshaw, Captain sahib. I found somebody who knows where he’s gone.’
    Horne was tired and unable to raise much enthusiasm for Jingee’s news.
    ‘Congratulations. You’ve had more luck than I,’ he admitted.
    ‘Fanshaw’s gone to Whampoa, Captain sahib,’ Jingee continued. ‘Exactly as Governor Pigot suspects.’
    He waited for Horne to take a seat. ‘I learned from mycousins that an Englishman has been secretly hiring crewmen to sail to … Canton!’
    Jingee had never before mentioned to Horne that he had relatives in Madras. But there was no place in India where the little Tamil did not seem to have a cousin or an aunt or some distant uncle.
    ‘Was the ship the China Flyer ?’asked Horne.
    Jingee held up the palms of both hands. ‘I do not know, Captain sahib. The family who gives this news to my cousins is Vaisya. Very good caste. Very honourable. But they do not know enough about boats to realise that boats have names like people.’
    ‘Is there any way to meet the family—?’ Horne began.
    He stopped as Jingee raised his hand and beckoned to someone at the door.
    Horne turned and saw Groot moving towards the table.
    ‘Sorry I’m late, schipper,’ the Dutchman apologised as he looked around the crowded tavern. ‘But I made friends with some Austrians and they told me a few things I thought we could use.’
    Horne ordered ale for the three of them, then he and Jingee gave Groot their undivided attention.
    ‘Lothar Schiller. That’s the man who’s sailing the China Flyer, I think, schipper,’ said Groot, hands folded on the plank table. ‘Schiller’s from Hamburg. He’s a soldier-of-fortune but found work recently aboard British ships. A few months ago he got a job he didn’t want to talk about to his friends. He would only say he planned going to the South China Sea.’
    ‘Is he a big man, this Schiller?’ asked Jingee.
    ‘Tall and—’ Groot shrugged. ‘—about as big as Babcock, as far I can understand.’ The question puzzled him.
    ‘What colour’s his hair?’ asked Jingee.
    ‘Yellow. Like mine. Why?’
    Jingee turned to Horne. ‘This Schiller man must be the same person my cousins’ friends spoke about.’
    Groot looked inquisitively from Jingee to Horne. ‘You two know something you’re not telling me?’
    Jingee hurriedly repeated the story he had heard from his cousins’ friends, the family whose son had been hired to sail to China with an Englishman who had told him to keep his destination a secret.
    ‘The family only knew that the captain of the ship on which their son would be sailing spoke German,’ he said,