Casca 18: The Cursed Read online

  The caste cringe was no more a problem for Casca than one more trick in sword play. Early in his British army career, he had discerned that those who couldn't do it, never made it past corporal, and his mouth had hung agape at the resultant waste of some of the very best material.

  But, fuck it, it was the price of joining the game, and, at the time, Casca had been right out of a game. So he had joined the branch of the British China Company known as the British army, and accepted the archaic class divisions just as he accepted the inedible food and the intolerable discipline.

  Well, the somewhat mollified colonel thought, let it go for now. This Johnny will give me another chance to hang him sooner or later. Aloud he said: "I have considered this unfortunate matter carefully from all angles, and I believe it may be within my power to offer you a way to save your worthless life."

  Casca saw clearly that, for some reason, the colonel had little choice but to offer him his life, but prudence suggested a humble approach. "And what way might that be, sir?" he asked as ingratiatingly as he could manage.

  "Can't imagine why you ever bothered, but you speak the abominable system of grunts and gasps these yellow beasts call a language, don't you?"

  "I speak some Chinese, yes. As for why I learned it, I might recommend it to you, sir, as an intellectual exercise."

  "Wha-a-at? So I can talk to my laundress or the ricksha boys, or the whores? What the fuck do you think I should want to say to them in their own tongue?"

  "There are other Chinese, sir, and it might help you to appreciate their mentality."

  "If there were one to appreciate in the species." The colonel didn't intend to pursue this discussion. "Report to the regimental sergeant major. He will arrange conduct to the consul, who will outline a mission to you, if you accomplish it successfully, I just might be dissuaded from hanging you on your return. Dismiss."

  As Casca saluted, the colonel added: "You're still under arrest, mind."

  "Yes, sir," Casca answered easily. "I shall ask the consul for formal release from arrest if I agree to the mission." He turned in fine British army style and marched from the room, feeling on top of the world.

  Harry Hargreaves, the British consul, was one of the best of the colonial service men in Hong Kong. He had once had hopes of an appointment in the Indian civil service, but his qualifications "character," "all-rounder," "steel true and blade straight" determined that he went to the colonial service side of the Foreign Office quadrangle at the corner of Whitehall and Downing Street in London.

  On the other side of the quadrangle Indian civil service cadets were being examined in horsemanship and English literature, the prescribed qualifications.

  He had accepted the Hong Kong post, which nobody in the diplomatic corps wanted, for the sake of his career. He had been born well rather than rich, and that made him ideal diplomatic material; but it also meant that he could not afford to idle his time away in Paris or Budapest or St. Petersburg. He needed postings where there was work to be done, where he could get some chance to exhibit his talents and his capacity for work.

  So far Hong Kong had not provided either, but it was his personal conviction that trouble was brewing, and if he could be instrumental in nipping it in the bud, it could help his career enormously.

  He looked at the heavily built sergeant who stood at attention on the other side of his walnut desk. His glance fell to Casca's gleaming boots.

  Captain Graeme Maclaine, the poor, young Scots doctor who had come to China in the hope of saving enough of his army pay to one day buy a small highland medical practice, had certified the cause of Marshman's death as being heart failure, brought about by suffocation, induced in turn by strangulation. He had also noted massive internal injuries and hemorrhage as the result of damage inflicted upon the genital and pelvic areas with a blunt instrument wielded with considerable force. The postmortem report ended with a note that the corpse lacked a tongue, which appeared to have been bitten off.

  The consul had no way of knowing that one of the Chinese slaves who swept the parade ground had found the tongue, and that it was now drying in the sun like a piece of beef jerky, on the back sill of Fei Qili's shanty.

  The consul brought his eyes back to Casca's face. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

  "In what connection, sir?"

  Cool customer, the consul thought. Too damned cool. "In connection," he said aloud, "with the murder of First Lieutenant Marshman."

  "I deny any connection with the execution for murder of the lieutenant."

  "What the hell are you talking about? There is no question of execution. Marshman was not accused of any murder. You are here charged with his murder."

  "And I deny it," Casca lied blandly. "But, it seems to me that whoever did the rotter in did the army a service."

  "Enough!" the consul shouted. "Sergeant Longsman, you forget yourself."

  "Just a simple soldier, sir." Casca tugged ironically at his forelock. "But I do hear that the Chinese are rather pleased about it, and, at first news of the girl's murder, there was talk of rebellion in the bazaars."

  The consul glared at Casca in exasperation. Dammit, the fellow was right. The drunken lecher could have set off just the sort of explosion he was worried about.

  Well all right, maybe this chappie was entitled to some sort of fit reward for possibly saving China for the empire. A medal would hardly do. Perhaps a small exgratia payment to his widow, for he most certainly should be hanged anyway. Can't have bloody sergeants killing officers. "Sergeant Longman, I understand that you speak Chinese, and the ambassador and the colonel have empowered me to temporarily release you from arrest, should you agree to put that capacity to work on behalf of the empire."

  "I'll be glad to do what I can for the empire, sir."

  "Mmmm. You mentioned rebellion. Do you know any facts about such a thing? Ringleaders, meeting, stuff like that?"

  "No sir, of course not."

  "No? No, I suppose not. Well, we're pretty sure there's trouble brewing, and we want to know more. In brief, we want you to go out into the countryside as a political intelligence scout, undercover of course, and see what you can find out."

  "I suppose I could do that, sir." Not too bad, Casca thought. Maybe they'll pass me off as a businessman, or a 'missionary. "What sort of cover do you have in mind?"

  "Cover? No idea. That's up to you. Just keep out of sight and keep a good lookout and keep us informed up to the minute. That's all."

  Casca looked down at his own bulk. "Stay out of sight, sir?"

  "Well, dress like a Chinese. Surely you can manage something."

  "There ain't many Chinese my size, sir. And there ain't none with blue eyes or fair hair."

  "Then keep your damned eyes and hair out of sight." The consul was exasperated again. This lower class cad was behaving exactly as one would expect a lower class cad to behave looking for some easy way to do the job, instead of just getting on with it. Terrible, the low grade material we have to work with out here. "One of those big cane hats should hide your hair and your eyes, shouldn't it?"

  "Well, perhaps," Casca parried, "we can just put off this assignment until I grow me a pigtail?"

  The consul's head snapped up. No, the swine wasn't laughing. Well, enough of this. "Sergeant Longman," he drawled, "we can put off the assignment forever if we choose to. But the bloody Chinks are not likely to put off their beastly uprising. And Braithwaite doesn't want to put off your hanging."

  So, a few days later, Casca found himself on the steamer out of Hong Kong harbor.

  His satchel carried a small fortune in gold and gems, some local currency, some English pounds, and a sizable cake of opium.

  The consul's instructions were for Casca to make his way around the borders of Kwangtung Province to the neighboring provinces of Fukien, Kiangsi, Hunan, and Kwangsi, to see if he could discern signs of trouble brewing for the British regime.

  "Put in some time on the rivers too," the consul had added offhan
dedly. "The Han and the Mei and the Tung and the Si. We'd like to know more about the traffic on them. And keep those reports flowing in. I want a message from you every time you get near contact with our communication network.

  "Oh, and do keep an account of how you spend the funds. Must keep the books straight, you know. You might yet escape hanging for killing one of Her Majesty's subalterns, but, should you abscond with her funds, I assure you nothing shall save you. There will be no mercy.

  "And don't think of deserting. There's nowhere for you to go where we can't find you. Be assured we will catch you sooner or later, and when we do, you will surely hang."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Casca was pulled from his reverie by the return of Ju Liqun, Songzhen's worthless husband, to their store. The little man arrived in the wake of his scurrying offspring, rolling along with the aimless gait of the perpetual drunkard. His bow was deep and ingratiating, but Casca noticed that his eyes were searching the corners of the small room as if in search of some of the promised money that the children had undoubtedly reported to him.

  "Welcome, honorable barbarian, to my less than worthy abode and far from profitable business."

  Casca bowed in reply. "Thank you, gracious host. I shall try to make myself worthy of your generous hospitality and your wife's excellent cooking, which I have already sampled with much pleasure."

  "Ah, honorable one, you do us great honor. Please to make yourself at ease and to amuse yourself within these unworthy walls as if they are your own."

  Casca bowed again and, thoroughly bored with the potentially endless exchange of courteous flatteries, he produced a handful of Chinese coins and paper money.

  Ju Liqun's greedy little eyes lit up, then widened in unbelieving delight as Casca added one English pound to the pile.

  Casca flicked his eyes over the far from inscrutable Chinese faces that were staring, goggle eyed with greed, at the money in his hand. "Oh fuck," he muttered to himself. "I've screwed up again."

  His mind raced as he sought a way to undo the damage done by producing such an extravagant display of his enormous wealth. Even in Hong Kong an English pound note represented great riches. Here in this remote village it seemed like more money than even a rich man might dream of.

  He handed the Chinese money to Liqun. "Honorable host, please be so kind as to accept this payment in the valuable currency of your esteemed nation for the time of my stay in your respected residence.

  "I also add this pound in English currency as an earnest of the urgency and delicacy of my mission. This pound also shall be yours when that mission is completed successfully."

  It didn't work. All five Chinese heads swiveled toward Casca's pack where even greater wealth was obviously stored.

  "Well," he said to himself, "so much for the carrot. Back to the stick."

  He locked eyes with Ju Liqun and steeled his voice. "This enormous reward" and he plucked the pound from Liqun's hand, “is payment for the silence of you and your family, for which I most happy to pay, rather than have to threaten you with the agonizing deaths that will result for all of you if you so much as breathe one word of my presence here."

  He allowed the pound to fall back into Liqun's palm, and in turn fixed his eyes on each of the family's faces. "Should my presence here become known outside of these walls, all of you will die, and die slowly and horribly. If anything should happen to my person, he who comes after me will ensure that even the most hideous death that you can dream of will be a pleasant and most merciful release compared to the endless tortures that he will devise."

  Ju Liqun fell to his knees. The old man and his daughter threw themselves on their faces at Casca's feet, and the two children groveled on the floor behind them.

  "Oh, merciful, just, and most esteemed barbarian, please spare this humble family from your wrath," Ju Liqun whined, placing the money on the floor before Casca. "To serve your eminent excellence in your mission is for us an inestimable honor, and we need no recompense. I beg you, take back this money and allow us to serve you. Your blessed presence in our unworthy abode will be for us the most excellent and desirable reward." Ju Liqun prostrated himself.

  Casca pondered a moment and, as nothing else came to mind, he placed his foot on Liqun's head. Well, he thought, at least they're suitably terrified, and I really have no alternative but to trust them so long as I can see them.

  He allowed some of his weight to rest on Liqun's head, then removed his foot and stepped back to stand, arms folded, a severe frown on his face.

  Tremulously Ju Liqun looked up at him. Casca decided that he could afford to be gracious. "Get up," he said, carefully omitting any courtesies. "Take the money. When my mission is completed another like me will come riding on a high horse, and he will reward you with yet another English pound."

  Not bad, he said to himself. He was well pleased with this invention. Then he looked around and noticed that the rest of the family was still hunched over on the floor. He barked, "On your feet!"

  Deng Ziyang got to his feet with considerable dignity. "Honorable Cas Ca Sho, if, in our unworthiness, we have displeased you, we apologize. You need have no fears of the reliability and discretion of this humble family. My unworthy son in law and my humble daughter and her insignificant children may be relied upon to serve you just as I have done in bringing you from Tsungkow." He bowed deeply, and the rest of the family got to their feet and bowed, too.

  Casca felt compelled to admire the way the old man had claimed his due credit for doing a good job in hauling Casca, for an extravagant fee, to his daughter's house where his family could not expect to profit further from him. Practical man, Casca mused.

  He nodded his acceptance of these promises and reached for his sack. He took from it his clothes and some papers and books and a small rosewood box secured with a brass lock. He handed the clothes to Songzhen. "Please wash these for me."

  He gave the books and papers to Liqun. "These are the materials of my mission, and I entrust them to you. Kindly keep them for me in a secure place."

  Casca suppressed a grin as he saw Liqun's eyes light up on the locked box, which, it so happened, contained nothing but writing materials. He handed the box to Liqun. "And this, you must guard with your life."

  Ju Liqun reached hungrily for the box, but as his hands closed on it Casca tightened his grip. His steely, blue gray eyes glared into Liqun's black ones. "Should anything – anything happen to this box, I assure you, you will live just long enough to wish that you had never been born."

  The worst of Casca's fears were confirmed when he saw that Ju Liqun lusted so intensely to possess the box that his fingers did not slacken their grip, although his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened in fear.

  "Honorable Cas Ca Sho, please do not imagine that I will allow any harm to come to this treasure. I shall guard it as I do my own children."

  Casca concealed his contempt for the drunk, as he glanced briefly at the ragged, unkempt boy and girl.

  `And this," he said as he produced a much larger, elaborately carved camphor wood chest, "is even more important. Do you dare to undertake its custody? You shall be rewarded well if it remains safe, or punished most atrociously should it come to harm."

  This time Casca failed to suppress his grin as Liqun grabbed for the chest. But his smile went unnoticed as ten greedy eyes focused on the box full of expensive silks and satins.

  "Your trust in me will serve you well, I assure you, most honorable Cas Ca Sho."

  Casca reached again into the sack and brought out the leather pouch in which he carried his toothbrush and shaving gear. He lifted the right side of his shirt to tuck this pouch into his belt, noticing again the hungry gleam in Liqun's eyes.

  For a moment he toyed with the idea of allowing Ju Liqun to see the Webley in the left side of his belt, but decided to keep both the gun and the short knife sheathed behind his back for another occasion.

  He kicked the sack casually into the corner, and was relieved to see that Liqun
's eyes didn't follow it. For the moment his hoard of gold, gems, and drugs was unrevealed, if not quite safe. The promise of further reward, his dire threats, and the prospect of getting to the contents of the boxes and the leather pouch should keep Liqun and his family from betraying him for a while.

  "The hell with it anyway, I need some rest," he muttered to himself, and asked Liqun where he might sleep.

  Songzhen bowed deeply. "Honorable sir, please to just wait for one minute while I make ready our poor bedchamber for your exalted presence."

  She left the room and Casca seated himself on the one small chair, stretching his legs so that his crossed heels happened to rest on the discarded sack. He closed his eyes and, ignoring the others in the room, commenced breathing deeply, willing his over-tautened muscles to relax.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Casca dozed in the corner of Ju Liqun's store, but his heels didn't move off his satchel, and from time to time he opened one eye to glance around the small room and to listen to the sounds from the next room and from the street. Then he would drop back into a half sleep.

  At least he was still alive, although the mission given him so casually by the consul appeared more and more suicidal by the moment.

  Under the numerous treaties exacted from China by the colonial powers, any Christian's life was sacred, his safety a charge on the emperor, as stipulated by the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin: "The Christian religion inculcates the practice of virtue and teaches man to do as he would be done by." The treaty had brought to an end the British and French siege and eventual sacking of the city over the death of a French missionary who had been killed by bandits hundreds of miles away in the interior.

  But for Casca to travel about in the style that might invoke the protection of the treaty would make his assignment impossible. The consul was well aware that his already existing intelligence gathering network of missionaries, soldiers, and traders was not ever going to detect the type of signs that he wanted Casca to look for.