Patrick O’Brian 3-Book Adventure Collection: The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore
‘We must get cracking,’ said Derrick. ‘There is no time to be lost.’
‘Very well, my boy. I will speak to Hsien Lu. Really, you seem to have a most practical mind in these difficult circumstances. I suppose it is your sea-training.’
The war-lord welcomed their proposal. He agreed to spare the prisoner’s life, according to the Professor’s promise, but he stripped the unfortunate man to the skin, and gave the Professor his clothes.
‘You will have to wear these,’ he said, ‘and here are his papers. I hope you will be able to ensnare the despicable Shun Chi, but if your esteemed intelligence succeeds in this project, I beg that the first consideration should be the safety of Mr Ross. I owe him a debt of gratitude, and if necessary I will attack with my whole army to set him free, although I have little hope of prevailing against Shun Chi’s ignoble strategy.’
He gave them all they asked, horses, weapons and a guide, and he added a little packet of quick poison, so that they should die easily if Shun Chi caught them.
Derrick was determined to go too, whatever the Professor might say. He privately asked the Tu-chun whether there were any Mongols in his camp, and when the Tu-chun said that there were four, Derrick begged to be allowed to change clothes with the smallest of them. He was accustomed to Mongol clothes – he had often worn Chingiz’s – and when Li Han, working feverishly, had altered them a little they looked natural enough. He greased his face as a Mongol does against the wind, using old and dirty grease, and he pulled the sheepskin hood low over his face. When the Professor saw him, he did not recognise him until he spoke, and his objections died away.
‘I should not permit it,’ he said hesitantly. ‘You ought to ride back to Chien Wu with Li Han. But I must admit that I would be very glad to have you at hand: I am not very much use in these emergencies. The danger of your being discovered is certainly very much less.’ He stared hard at the Mongol figure in front of him. ‘But if there is the slightest unfortunate incident, you must give me your word to ride straight back to Chien Wu, where Olaf will be able to get you out of the country. At the slightest mishap, and at the slightest untoward word, you understand? Fortunately Hsien Lu has given us the best horses in the country.’
Derrick promised, but with the mental reservation of deciding for himself just how dangerous the situation could become.
They left Li Han in the camp, with orders to return to the walled city, and the Professor entrusted him with his notes on the stelae, which, he said, were already worth the whole trouble of the expedition. Hsien Lu rode with them to the foot of the hills on the way to Liao-Meng and the rebels’ camp. When he parted from them he wished them good fortune and stood watching them for a long while as they followed the winding road up into the hills. Once Derrick looked back, and far down the road beyond the Tu-chun he saw a toiling figure mounted on an ass.
By nightfall they were at the top of the hills, and in the morning they looked down into the province of Liao-Meng. It was just before the rising of the sun that Derrick stood there looking down into the unknown land: he was wondering where in all that stretch of country his uncle lay when he was startled by the braying of an ass. He whipped round, and saw a donkey tethered with the horses. There was a little fire sending up a straight pillar of blue smoke in the still air, and beside it squatted a familiar figure. It was Li Han, brewing the Professor’s early morning tea.
‘Please excuse pertinacious disobedience,’ said Li Han, bringing forward the steaming bowls, ‘but I conceived cunning and lovely stratagem for discomfiture of rebels.’
‘Hotcha,’ said the Professor, and then in Chinese. ‘Speak freely, worthy sea-cook.’
‘Have prepared several hundred lumps of sugar,’ said Li Han, bowing, ‘each one inscribed with Chinese characters for Good Fortune, Long Life, Fertility and Victory. These, if inserted into petrol of mechanical transport belonging to ignominious rebel Shun Chi, will cause practically instantaneous and insuperable carbonisation of working parts.’
‘Is that really so, Li Han? Where did you find that out?’
‘Magnanimous engineer of trampling steamer imparted said information at Hong Kong when he required my unworthy aid in sabotaging car belonging to evilly disposed one-eyed merchant who had acquired engineer’s wages by means of felonious trick. We dissolved one lump of best refined sugar in petrol tank, and lo, automobile un-mobile in five minutes, with incapable roarings of disabled engine and violent explosions from long pipe, accompanied by unpleasantly smelling clouds of smoke.’
‘What a beautiful idea,’ said Derrick. ‘But how can we get it into Shun Chi’s gas?’
‘Now for best part of stratagem,’ replied Li Han. ‘Ignorant and superstitious soldiery will buy inscribed sugar-lumps as charms to increase potency of petrol. They will insert said lumps themselves, to their ultimate confusion and downfall. I shall also realise three thousand per centum profit on prime cost of sugar,’ he added, in a tone of rather hollow cheerfulness.
As they continued along the downward road into Liao-Meng their guide became more and more uneasy. At last he pointed to a distant clump of pines, told them that the rebels’ camp was just beyond it, and turned about.
‘We are well rid of him,’ said the Professor, looking after his disappearing figure. ‘The only men of any use to us are brave men.’ He nodded to Li Han, who bowed repeatedly, grasping the mane of his little ass.
Some way out of the rebel encampment they separated, and Li Han went forward to peddle his lucky charms to the soldiers. The Professor took a last look through the Russian’s papers. ‘Yes, they are all here,’ he said, folding them up. ‘I think the first part should be easy enough. How do I look?’ He looked a strange sight in his tall sheepskin hat, with the incongruous horn-rimmed spectacles under it, and at another time Derrick might have been amused. But now he answered quite seriously, ‘Quite all right, sir. But perhaps you should look more sinister if you could manage it. You have rather a mild expression, you know.’
‘Ah, I must remember that,’ said the Professor, with a savage leer. ‘And you must not forget your part. You are a dull, taciturn young Mongol servant; you speak neither Chinese nor Russian, and you know nothing about anything.’
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ said Derrick, with a faint grin. ‘And if anybody speaks to me in Mongol I can answer a few words convincingly enough. I can pretend to be an Usbeg or a Kazak: they won’t have any of them here.’
They went on, on and on to the clump of trees: they passed a few pedlars with baskets of fruit for the soldiers, and as the road led round the trees they came to a well-fortified camp, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by sentries. The Professor rode boldly up to the main gate: the sentries saluted, obviously expecting him, and they passed through the barbed wire. Derrick followed the Professor, looking neither to the right nor the left: he felt his heart hammering, but he kept his face expressionless and dull.
In a moment they were past the sentries, and an orderly ran to take the Professor’s reins. He dismounted, gave Derrick a pack to carry, and asked in a loud, surly voice where Shun Chi was to be found. Before the soldier could answer a group of men came from a nearby hut, and Derrick saw that four of them were Europeans and two Chinese. The Professor blinked nervously: the men greeted him in Russian, and after a fit of coughing he replied hoarsely, holding his handkerchief up to his mouth. There was a general shaking of hands, and the orderly began to lead the horses away. Derrick was at something of a loss; he could not understand what the Professor was saying, and he did not know what to do. The Professor took no notice of him, but walked away with the men towards the hut, speaking much more confidently as the minutes went by: Derrick stood for a moment, then followed the orderly to the horse-lines and watched him bring their fodder. To the remarks of the Chinese he shrugged his shoulders and replied gutturally in Mongol. The man did not trouble with him any further, and Derrick wandered nonchalantly into the rebel camp.
Presently he came to the flattened, greasy space where the lorries were lined up, and at the far end of the lorries he saw three tanks, with a group of men crowded round them. He