Snake Bite (10 page)

Three dark-haired boys were grouped together where he had been standing. They were all about his size. Despite their obvious youth the one who had taken his envelope had a thin moustache and the
boy on his right had a straggly beard. The third boy was clean-shaven but his hair was long and greasy.

Around them, people walked past as if nothing untoward was happening. It was as if they were in their own little bubble, separate from the rest of the world.

‘You don’t need this, do you?’ the one holding the envelope said in Cantonese. He held the envelope up, smiling. ‘Just say if you want it back.’

The three boys laughed.

‘Yes, I want it back,’ Sherlock said, also in Cantonese, as he climbed to his feet and brushed the dust from his clothes.

The boys stared at him, surprised. ‘You speak
Yue
?’ the greasy-haired one exclaimed. ‘I didn’t think white barbarians could learn our language!’

‘I can do more than speak your language,’ Sherlock said darkly. ‘Give that back.’

‘Or what?’ the bearded youth sneered.

He found his hands and feet naturally assuming
T’ai chi ch’uan
defensive positions. ‘Or I’ll take it back.’

The boy glanced at his friends. ‘One against three? Hardly fair. One of us could defeat three of you, little boy.’

‘Numbers aren’t important. I want it back more than you want to keep it.’

‘And besides,’ another voice said in accented Cantonese from one side, ‘it’s not one against three – it’s two against three. The two of us can take the three
of you easily.’

The boys all turned their heads to see who was speaking. Sherlock took the opportunity to step forward and snatch his pay from the boy who had taken it. The boy’s head spun back, and he
grabbed for the envelope, but Sherlock stepped out of the way.

On the other side of the boys stood a Western youth of about Sherlock’s age and about Sherlock’s height. He was thin and he wore metal-rimmed spectacles. His hair was blond, almost
white: it was swept back from his forehead and it was long enough to fall over his ears and collar. His clothes were Chinese, but somehow newer and cleaner than the ones that everyone else was
wearing.

The youth with the moustache stepped forward and reached for Sherlock’s envelope at the same time that his friends decided to remove the newcomer from the equation. One of them – the
bearded one – reached out to push the blond boy’s shoulder while the other one – the one with greasy hair – tried to step past him and put a foot behind his leg so that if
he moved backwards to avoid the shove he would trip over.

Sherlock grabbed the approaching wrist with his right hand and then twisted his whole body underneath it. The boy jerked forward, forced over by the pressure on his arm. Sherlock glanced at the
newcomer. The blond boy easily deflected the hand moving towards his shoulder. He stepped forward rather than backwards, throwing the boy with the greasy hair off balance. His right hand shot out,
fingers curled so that the heel of the hand slammed into the bearded youth’s ribcage. The youth doubled up in pain. Before the one with greasy hair could react, the blond newcomer lashed out
with his elbow, catching him in the face. Greasy Hair jerked back, blood streaming from his nose.

Sherlock felt the boy whose arm he was twisting trying to pull away. He twisted harder. The boy lashed backwards with a foot, but Sherlock had anticipated the movement and sidestepped him. He
released the boy’s wrist, but before the boy could turn around Sherlock kicked him hard in the buttocks. The boy sprawled forward, into the dust.

‘Best leave now,’ the blond boy said in English. He pulled Sherlock into a run. ‘Bravado is all very well, but there
are
three of them, and they’ve been studying
martial arts since they were five years old.’

‘We didn’t do too badly.’

‘We were lucky. We caught them by surprise.’ He looked around. ‘And they have friends nearby. I know what they’re like. Despite the fact that they spend their lives
talking about honourable behaviour, they have no honour themselves when it comes to foreigners. One shout and we could find ourselves up against a crowd.’

‘Good point,’ Sherlock conceded.

Together they ran through the crowd, twisting and turning in case the Chinese boys were following. The blond boy changed direction several times. Eventually he led Sherlock behind a stall
selling dishes of fish in some kind of sauce. A group of crates had been left on the grass, and he gestured to Sherlock to sit down.

‘Thanks for rescuing me,’ Sherlock said. ‘I appreciate the assistance.’

‘No problem,’ the boy said. He slipped his glasses off and polished them with a handkerchief he took from his pocket. ‘My name is Cameron. Cameron Mackenzie.’

‘Sherlock,’ Sherlock replied. ‘Sherlock Scott Holmes.’

‘You’re off the ship that’s just come in,’ Cameron said. He wasn’t asking a question – he seemed to already know. ‘But you’re not like an ordinary
sailor. You’re younger than most of them, and you didn’t head straight for the taverns like they do.’ He laughed – a quick
huff
of air, gone as soon as Sherlock heard
it. ‘They get their money when they leave the ships and they’ve usually spent it by the time they get to the city gates – not that the guards would let them in. Shanghai is still
a town in isolation.’ He spoke in English, although there was an accent in his voice that Sherlock thought was familiar.

‘You obviously live here,’ Sherlock said in return. ‘Your Cantonese is excellent. But you’re originally American, aren’t you? I recognize the accent.’

Cameron nodded. ‘Well, my father is. We came here when I was five.’ He mopped his forehead with the handkerchief, and slipped his glasses back on. ‘My father is a local
shipping agent. He buys cargoes from the ships that dock here and then sells them on to the Chinese businessmen at a profit. That’s how I knew your ship had arrived. I saw you come down the
gangway later than everyone else. I also saw that you were about my age, so I thought I’d say hello. Then those apes tried to take your money, so I decided to lend a hand. I hope you
don’t mind.’

‘Not at all,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I take it you spend a lot of time here at the quayside, watching the ships arriving and departing.’

Cameron nodded. He looked away, seemingly slightly embarrassed. ‘I don’t remember much about America,’ he said eventually. ‘In fact, I think that even the things I do
remember are just dreams, or things I’ve invented or that I’ve read somewhere. I like to talk to people who have recently arrived to see if they’ve been to America, and if they
can tell me about it.’

‘I’ve been to New York,’ Sherlock said. ‘Only for a week or so, but I did get out into the countryside. Do you want to hear about it?’

Cameron nodded eagerly. ‘My father is from Chicago,’ he said. ‘But New York will do. It’s another big city.’ He paused, thinking. ‘I know – rather than
sit here in the dark, do you want to come to my house? I’m sure Mother and Father won’t mind you having dinner with us.’

‘If you’re certain that will be all right,’ Sherlock said.

‘I am.’ Cameron glanced critically at Sherlock’s sailor’s clothes. ‘Although, knowing Mother, she will insist that you change into some of my old clothes.
She’s a stickler for dressing properly for dinner.’

‘We’re about the same size,’ Sherlock estimated.

‘All right. Come on then.’

Cameron led the way back to the road, and then towards the city gates. Looking behind him, Sherlock noticed the long, low white ship that he had seen earlier, from the deck of the
Gloria
Scott
.

‘What’s that ship?’ he asked. ‘You know all the arrivals.’

Cameron followed Sherlock’s pointing finger with his gaze. ‘That’s an American warship. It’s called the USS
Monocacy
. It docked yesterday.’

‘A warship?’ Sherlock asked, remembering the cannonball marks on the city walls. ‘There’s not going to be a war, is there?’

‘Not right now. It’s a goodwill visit. The Captain of the
Monocacy
is asking for permission to sail up the Yangtze River. He says that his orders are to prepare better maps of
the region. He’s already paid a courtesy call on my father, as the most important American in the area.’

‘What happened to the funnel?’ Sherlock asked.

‘You spotted that? I heard the Captain tell my father that they lost it in a storm, but that they put in for repairs in a port in Japan.’

Sherlock got nervous as they approached the town walls, remembering the guards that he had seen earlier, but the guards obviously recognized Cameron and waved him in. They ignored Sherlock
entirely – presumably if he was with someone who was allowed in then he was allowed in too.

‘This is the “Gate of the Leaping Dragon”,’ Cameron explained as they went through. ‘There are fourteen gates in total.’

As they passed into the town, Cameron turned to Sherlock. ‘The town has only been opened up to foreigners in the past few years. Before that we had to live in a special area outside the
town walls, and if we wanted to do business then people had to come to us. We weren’t allowed in to see them.’

‘What changed?’ Sherlock asked.

Cameron smiled. ‘Great Britain went to war with China to force the country to open up and allow foreigners in.’

‘We obviously won,’ Sherlock conceded. ‘I don’t remember hearing about it, though.’

‘You did win. My father will probably want to thank you in person.’

Sherlock thought of his brother, who had some kind of important job in the British Government. ‘I’ll pass his thanks on,’ he said.

Cameron laughed – the same quick snort that he had given before. ‘Of course, even though the Chinese authorities have let us into the town, they still make sure that all the
foreigners are clustered together in one area, and there are regular police patrols to make sure we don’t wander too far. They don’t like us dressing in Chinese clothes either. If they
notice me they always tell me off.’

The buildings in the town were unlike anything Sherlock had seen before. Most of them were only one or two storeys tall, and rather than being set in gardens, as English buildings would be, they
appeared to be built
around
gardens. The roofs of the houses were amazingly ornate, covered with coloured tiles and usually curling upwards at the corners, and many of the residences had
small statues outside the door, usually of fat, self-contented bald men, but Sherlock guessed there was more to them than met the eye. On street corners, and in small open areas between the houses,
there were also statues of what Sherlock assumed were mythical animals. They mostly looked like a cross between dogs and lions, but some of them had horns and others had wings.

‘
Bixie
,
Qilin
and
Tianlu
,’ Cameron said, noticing his interest. Sherlock didn’t recognize the words, and Cameron didn’t elaborate.

The Mackenzie family residence wasn’t far from the city gates. From the outside it looked like all the other houses. Cameron knocked on the front door. An elderly man in
a dark suit opened it.

‘Master Cameron – your mother was beginning to worry.’ His voice was quiet and dry.

Cameron pushed past him. ‘I’m fine, Harris. I’m always fine.’ He turned and indicated Sherlock. ‘This is a friend of mine. His name is Sherlock – Sherlock
Holmes. He’s going to be staying for dinner.’

‘Very well.’ Harris nodded his head slightly at Sherlock, and held the door open so that he could enter. ‘I will notify Cook. I presume you will be notifying your
parents?’

‘I’ll do that now.’ Cameron indicated that Sherlock should follow him. ‘Come on – I’ll introduce you.’

Sherlock didn’t know what the interior of a proper Chinese house would be like, but the interior of the Mackenzie house was surprisingly similar to that of his aunt and uncle’s
house. It had similar dark wood panelling, similar tiled flooring in the hall, similar deep carpets in the main rooms and a similarly random selection of art scattered around. The only difference
was that the artworks in the Holmes household were landscapes and paintings of horses, whereas the artworks in the Mackenzie household were mainly small statuettes of dragons and paintings of
elderly Chinese men with long white beards.

Sherlock felt out of place in his sailor’s clothes. He shifted uneasily, but Cameron didn’t seem to notice. He pulled Sherlock eagerly into a side room.

‘Mother, Father – I’ve brought a friend for dinner. Is that all right?’

The room was obviously a sitting room – comfortable chairs, side tables and a relaxed feeling. There was a man in one of the chairs, reading a newspaper. He was probably in his
mid-forties, Sherlock guessed, with short hair that was black on top but greying at the temples. He was smoking a pipe. A woman was sitting near him, sewing. She was wearing a dress that looked to
Sherlock as if it was made locally – scarlet silk embroidered with green fronds. Her hair was copper-red, and Sherlock noticed that her eyes were green. She was dressing to complement her
complexion. She glanced up with a smile as Cameron entered.

‘Darling – we were wondering where you were. We don’t mind you bringing friends back for dinner, but not one of those Chinese boys, and not without a little advance
notice.’ She caught sight of Sherlock. ‘Oh. Hello.’

Sherlock bowed his head. It seemed like the polite thing to do. ‘I’m sorry for intruding,’ he said. ‘I met Cameron earlier. He helped me out when I was in trouble. My
name is Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.’

Cameron’s father stood up and put his newspaper to one side. He extended a hand to shake Sherlock’s hand.

‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Mr Mackenzie, and this is my wife. Welcome to our house. There aren’t many Western boys around here for Cameron to make friends with, so we’re
more than pleased to have you here.’ He gazed critically at Sherlock’s clothes. ‘Just off a ship, I presume. The
Gloria Scott
?’

Sherlock nodded, embarrassed. ‘It’s a long story—’ he started to say, but Mrs Mackenzie
shush
ed him. ‘Time for stories later. Cameron, take Sherlock upstairs
and let him try on some of your clothes. You are going to need to dress for dinner as well. The Captain and the senior officers of the USS
Monocacy
are dining with us tonight.’ She
wrinkled her nose at Sherlock. ‘Normally we wouldn’t be quite so formal, but you know what ship’s captains are like.