Michelle Jana Chan is an award-winning journalist and travel editor of Vanity Fair. She is also contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveller, presenter of the BBC’s Global Guide and a writer for the Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal and Travel & Leisure. Michelle has been named the Travel Media Awards’ Travel Writer of the Year. She was a Morehead-Cain scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
With very special thanks to
David Matthews for his support
bringing this book to readers
With special thanks to the patrons of Song:
Louis Gave
Nicholas Johnston
Ginanne Mitic
Hubert Moineau
Philip Muelder
Maia Sethna
Henry Verey
Dear Reader,
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A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SUPPORTERS
COPYRIGHT
At first they were glad the rains came early. They had already finished their planting and the seedlings were beginning to push through. The men and women of Lishui straightened their backs, buckled from years of labouring, led the buffalo away and waited for the fields to turn green. With such early rains there might be three rice harvests if the weather continued to be clement. But they quickly lost hope of that. The sun did not emerge to bronze the crop. Instead the clouds hung heavy. More rain beat down upon an already sodden earth and lakes were born where even the old people said they could not remember seeing standing water.
The Li rose higher and higher. Every morning the men of the village walked to the river to watch the water lap at its banks like flames. Sometimes they stood there for hours, their faces as grey as the flat slate light. Still the rain fell, yet no one cared about their clothes becoming wet or the nagging coughs the chill brought on. Occasionally a man lifted his arm to wipe his face. But mostly they stood still like figures in a painting, staring upstream, watching the water barrel down, bulging under its own mass.
Before the end of the week the Li had spilled over its banks. A few days later the water had covered the footpaths and cart tracks, spreading like a tide across the land and sweeping away all the fine shoots of newly planted rice. Further upstream the river broke up carts, bamboo bridges and outbuildings; it knocked over vats of clean water and seeped beneath the doors of homes. Carried on its swirling currents were splintered planks of wood, rotting food, and shreds of sacking and rattan.
Song awoke to feel the straw mat wet beneath him. He reached out his hand. The water was gently rising and ebbing as if it was breathing. His brother Xiao Bo was crying in his sleep. The little boy had rolled off his mat and was lying curled up in the water. He was hugging his knees as if to stop himself from floating away.
Song’s father was not home yet. He and the other men had been working through the night trying to raise walls of mud and rein back the river’s strength. But the earthen barriers washed away even as they built them; they could only watch, hunched over their shovels.
The men did not return that day. As the hours passed the women grew anxious. They stopped by each other’s homes, asking for news, but nobody had anything to say. Song’s mother Zhang Je was short with the children. The little ones whimpered, sensing something was wrong.
Song huddled low with his sisters and brothers around the smoking fire which sizzled and spat but gave off no heat. They had wedged among the firewood an iron bowl but the rice inside was not warming. That was all they had left to eat now. Xiao Wan curled up closer to Song. His little brother followed him everywhere nowadays. His sisters Xiao Mei and San San sat opposite him, adding wet wood to the fire and poking at the ash with a stick. His mother stood in the doorway, the silhouette of Xiao Bo strapped to her back and her large rounded stomach tight with child.
The children dipped their hands into the bowl, squeezing grains of rice together, careful not to take more than their share. Song was trying to feed Xiao Wan but he was too weak even to swallow. The little boy closed his eyes and rested his head in Song’s lap, wheezing with each breath. Their mother continued to look out towards the fields, waiting, with Xiao Bo’s head slumped unnaturally to the side as he slept.
‘I don’t think they’re coming back.’
Song could barely hear what his mother was saying.
‘They’re too late,’ she muttered.
Song wasn’t sure if she was talking to him. ‘Mama ?’
Her voice was more brisk. ‘They’re not coming back, I said.’
Song didn’t reply. He looked across at his sisters, who were continuing to push squashed grains of cold rice into their mouths. Song’s breathing quickened, losing its rhythm. He felt his body tighten. Lying across Song’s lap, Xiao Wan woke up and started to cry.
That night Song slept on the wet woven matting between his sisters and brothers, and dreamed of a place far away which resembled land but in fact was a gigantic lake whose surface was covered in broken rice shoots. At first it seemed beautiful. But then in Song’s mind he saw the bloated bodies floating face up and staring wide-eyed at something beyond the cloudless blue sky.
Song woke with a jolt and tried to shut out the image. He pressed himself closer against the bodies of Xiao Wan and San San. Their skin was cold. Song reached his arm across San San’s waist and realised how thin she had become. He could hear Xiao Bo moaning in his sleep.
Song stared up at the underside of the roof above him. In the darkness he could just make out the curves and ridges of the pottery tiles. Another land began to appear in his mind, this time protected by giant roof tiles ten times as big as the ones above him, keeping everyone dry, allowing them all to scramble up to safety.
Song sat upright and shook himself. The night was quiet except for the heavy breathing of his family.
Xiao Mei had a raw cough, but it didn’t wake her. Xiao Bo continued to moan rhythmically in his sleep. He was too small to pretend he wasn’t hungry. Song had been pretending ever since he could remember. Taking less than his share. Knowing that he, the eldest, at the age of nine, was stronger than his sisters and brothers.
‘Song’ll make it,’ he had once overheard his mother tell his father. ‘He came to us in a good year. Not like his sisters and brothers. They were born at the wrong time.’
Song shivered in the cold damp room. It was then that he remembered the words of Zhu Wei, the medicine man who travelled between villages, carrying his chinking bottles of tinctures and pots of sweet-smelling balsam, all the while telling stories of places he had seen.
‘This world is sweet, my friend. Go. Take yourself away.’
Song tried to piece together what he had heard.
‘Malaya. Heady with spices. India. With its regal princes, elephants dressed up in finery, and the vivid colours. Ah, and then there’s Guiana. The sugarcane whispers in a sea breeze so salty you can lick it. Mangoes. Mangoes so full of juice they split on the tree and seep nectar. Like sunshine might taste. Rubber trees bleed without so much as a tap and a full bucket fetches a price so high that you don’t have to work for the rest of the month. There’s nothing to spend money on anyway, with fruit hanging off every tree: papaya, guava, carambola, sapodilla. No one is ever wanting. And don’t start me on the gold. Even babies of the poorest families wear solid gold bangles around their wrists and ankles. Diamonds too. They say there are whole cities built of gold and precious stones.’
Song screwed up his eyes and tried to believe in the place Zhu Wei had described.
‘The Englishmen take you there for nothing – not a penny – on huge wooden boats which use the wind and the stars and their magic to reach these new lands. Hundreds are going every day, boy. You don’t want to be left behind. Hail down one of the carts. They’re sweeping through the villages collecting up young men with dreams and courage, the ones looking for adventure and who are willing to work. You want to get on your way before these places are full.
‘The boats leave from Guangzhou. A terrible place. Don’t get waylaid, I warn you, or you won’t make it to the end of the month. Keep moving. There’s a world beyond what you know. Every boy should travel. Go and see new places. Find work. Get rich. Come back if you want to. But see the world first. Don’t die here, boy. You’re too young to die here.’
Song pictured himself boarding one of the wooden English boats and arriving among lush plantations of sweet sugarcane bordered by trees bearing plump fruit on bowed branches. He licked his lips around the taste of a mango and felt burning cramps in his stomach. Then he imagined himself returning home laden with sugar and gold and diamonds, and the wide disbelieving shining eyes of his sisters and brothers.
Song shivered again. His mother had propped open the front door and the room was cool. He looked up, trying to imagine his father’s silhouette in the doorway, but nobody was there. Not that Song ever particularly noticed his father coming home. He was a man who spoke quietly and was soft of foot. But in his head Song could hear his father’s voice telling him how to move through life: ‘strangers don’t like strangers’; ‘trouble only comes to those who stand out’; ‘keep your head down’. The memory of his words triggered something inside Song. He felt the sudden weight of his family; now he must not only take care of himself but everyone else, too. Song felt himself fold, sobbing, covering his face with his hands.
The village of Lishui felt their way through the days and weeks ahead in a daze. For the women and children left behind there was too much to do to think about mourning men. They could no longer drink clean water from the wells. There was no dry firewood. The babies lay listless, too emaciated to cry. The old people had stopped eating. The rest of the village sifted through the debris carried by the floodwater trying to salvage anything useful: a sack of wet seed, odd rice shoots, rotten wood, a sodden shred of cloth.
Every morning they hoped to wake to see the land steaming dry and to feel the heat of the sun, but instead clouds brooded heavy and low in the sky before bursting like blisters. Rain fell so hard it bounced from the ground, raining up as well as down. The grey air and reflecting water drained the land of colour.
Song knew what he had to do. He thought of the sugar, the gold, the diamonds in far-off lands. But he also remembered the dark stories about the city called Guangzhou and how some men returned broken. ‘Stay away from them men,’ the women told the children, even when it was their own husbands. And the children listened and stayed away, frightened by the way the men sat all day staring out, as if they were asleep with their eyes open. Song shuddered, but he had made up his mind.
He went to find his mother. She was at the back of the house keeping the fire alight. He watched her as she shifted around a pot of water, trying to catch the heat of a flickering flame before it extinguished with a fizz.
‘Mama.’
Zhang Je looked up. There were dark shadows under her glazed eyes, red and streaming from the smoke. Her face was drawn. She did not seem to see Song.
He crouched down and took the pot from his mother. ‘Let me.’
She let the stick fall from her hands. Song used it to poke at the charred embers and blew into the fire. A cloud of ash billowed up.
‘I’m going to Guangzhou to look for work, Mama.’
They both watched a small flame momentarily light up.
‘I’ll go with the next cart,’ Song said. ‘They’re looking for boys like me. It doesn’t cost anything to go, they say. There’s lots of work. I’ll bring back money and food for everyone.’
Song looked up at his mother’s blank face. She was staring down at the fire. Her cheeks were smeared wet.
‘It’s just for a time,’ Song said. ‘Until the rains end.’
She shook her head.
‘We need some food for Xiao Bo, don’t we ?’ Song continued. ‘And the baby and everyone.’
‘Not by sending you away, son. Not at your age. You don’t know anything about the world out there. I’ve heard they’ll slit your throat for the shirt on your back, even a grain of rice. Your papa wouldn’t have allowed it. I won’t let you go.’
Song thought of his papa, and it hurt. He wanted to leave the place where memories of his father were so strong, where he felt his absence everywhere: in the flicker of each shadow, hoping it might be him; hearing the echo of his voice in an empty room; remembering the way they caught each other’s eye.
‘He would let me go.’ Song wanted to believe that his father, from his grave, or wherever he was, would take care of him. ‘Mama, listen to me, there’s nothing left.’
‘Nothing left,’ Zhang Je repeated.
‘I must go. Nobody else can. I’m the eldest now.’
‘My eldest is too young.’
‘But I’m also too young to die,’ Song said.
Zhang Je took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Don’t talk that way.’
Song looked at the tears like grey rain on his mother’s face. He felt alone, as if everybody was already dead. ‘You’ve given up,’ he said.
Song felt the slap hard across his cheek, and then his mother pulling him to her. She held him firmly against her hard pregnant stomach, with his head resting by her small soft breasts. Her damp shirt smelled of mould and smoke. She moaned as she stroked the side of his head where she had struck him. He stopped breathing to be even more still.
‘Nothing left,’ she said again.
Song waited, afraid to speak again.
His mother turned him towards her and held his face between her palms like a prayer. ‘Find some life for yourself, son,’ she said. ‘Go and find some life. Find it for all of us.’
Hearing those words, Song suddenly felt alone.
‘We’ll wait for you,’ his mother continued. ‘Don’t forget. We’ll be here when you come back.’
There had been nothing to pack. Song had only the clothes he was wearing. He waited by the road with his sisters and brothers looking for the cart. Xiao Wan began wailing like a sick dog. Song told him to hush and the little boy stopped instantly. When Song sighted the cart in the distance he called out to his mother, who was still inside the house. She emerged from the doorway and hurried awkwardly towards them, one hand cupping her swollen stomach and the other gripping a swing-basket of rice. She held it up for Song like a trophy. He tried to refuse it but she forced it into his hands. The other children stared on.
‘No mother sends off a son empty-handed,’ she said. ‘You never know how long the journey will be.’
As Song took the gift he felt its weight. He was keenly aware how many days this might feed his family. He held back the tears. The cart halted in front of them. It seemed too crammed to take another but a hand reached out to haul Song up from the ground and pull him on to the back ledge. Song clambered inside and then quickly swung around to look back. The cart had already started to roll away.
‘We’ll call him Xiao Song,’ his mother shouted, pointing at her belly. Her words cut. He didn’t want to imagine another Song taking his place.
This was his family. His four sisters and brothers seemed even smaller beside their mother with her gourd-like stomach; they gazed up at him in the high-sided cart, above which he barely reached. They raised their hands to wave, all except Xiao Mei, who stared out blankly, the only one who didn’t cry.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ Song called out. ‘With sugar and gold and diamonds, I promise. You wait and see.’
Song watched his family diminish on the track, their smudged figures in a row: Xiao Wan with his arm pulled up unnaturally high to grip his mother’s hand; Xiao Mei, who didn’t speak any more; the hungriest, San San, who never complained but whose tummy groaned and grumbled so loudly the others rested their ear upon it just to hear; and Xiao Bo, too small to understand most things but aware today his eldest brother was leaving them. They continued to wave until Song could no longer make out their faces; he could see only their arms fanning to and fro in big sweeps. He watched them turn away and walk along the elevated muddy pathway between the lake-fields where the rice had once grown.
For three days, the landscape barely changed. They passed beyond the villages Song knew and began to skirt those he might have visited once or twice until everybody he saw was a stranger. He stared backwards into the wake of the cart, choosing a point – a bush, a house, a buffalo – to watch shrink away, like his family had. It made him feel he was getting closer to where he was going.
On the cart it was mostly men but Song noticed a few boys as young as himself. Some were brothers. Not even they talked much to each other but Song was used to that, especially since the flood. Lishui had fallen quiet after the loss of its men, as if the village was too afraid to speak or hear anything more, lest there was further bad news.
Song remembered his father’s warning and kept his head down and tried not to catch anyone’s eye. In the day he tucked his swing-basket of rice tightly under his arm, waiting until after dark to scoop some grains up to his mouth and feeling around his lap for any morsel he might have dropped.
He slept fitfully. He sometimes stayed awake all night staring up at the stars in the sky and imagining a land as far away as that. As the heat of the day rose up he copied the others, and tied his shirt around the crown of his head and dozed. Sometimes he was woken by rain pelting his skin or by his own shivering. He curled himself up more tightly and tried again to drift off to sleep.
One morning he opened his eyes to see sun crackling off the rice fields. He squinted at the glare. Around him the land had suddenly taken on colour. The rounded hills had turned green. The soil was the rich brown of mushrooms. Buffaloes shone like aubergines, each with a white egret upon its back.
Song noticed the other men in the cart as if he was seeing them for the first time. They had become handsome in the sharp sunlight and their features were more pronounced. Conversations began between each other, as if they were slowly emerging from a cold and colourless hibernation.
The city was also taking shape. There were more carts on the road, more people, more haste. Song thought back to the stories he had heard about the city called Guangzhou, some of hope, many of them harrowing. His own uncle had returned rich, leading a pair of buffaloes into their village, each laden with sacks of dried fish, coloured bottles and sweet plums. ‘One of the lucky few,’ his father had whispered, out of his brother-in-law’s earshot but ensuring his children heard. Yet within days his uncle was stone cold dead. His heart had stopped in his sleep. ‘I spoke too soon,’ his father said. ‘Not even one of the lucky few.’
Most came back poorer and thinner than when they had left. They were often too spent to talk about it. Rumours collected like stagnant water until everyone had caught a whiff, building up fear of this big city, where grown men were whipped like animals until they bled from their eyeballs, and wicked women with magical pipes cast spells which could steal someone’s memory and money without provoking a whisper of protest.
Of course there were some who never made it back at all. There was a boy from Lishui, not much older than Song, who followed his brother to the city. Some had heard he was running a string of brothels and opium dens and making more money in one day than any of them were likely to see in a lifetime. Others said he’d had his throat slit, and had been left to rot in some fetid bend of the Pearl River.
The cart slowed as it made its way through the narrow lanes. There were stubborn animals in the road and traders hustling, pulling behind them wagons laden with green cabbages, bales of bamboo shoots and cages of chickens. Song was surprised by how much he liked the town, at least from these first impressions. He could smell salt fish, durian and overripe papaya. There was shouting and laughing and squabbling all muddled up; street-sellers touting sticks of fried squid, bowls of spicy bean curd and steamed dumplings. Song gulped at the air to try to taste the food.
The Pearl River was wide and choppy and crammed with boats; captains jostled for a berth while armies of coolies competed to move the cargo. Rice barges lined up. A rope was thrown, a boat was tethered and a dozen men began to transfer sacks of rice from the dock to the deck. Working in pairs, they launched sack after sack through the air while the sailors on board caught the cargo, breaking its fall and positioning it neatly in rows. Slim dugouts shared the river, steered by men clasping poles who stirred their wake as if it was a pudding, directing the nose of the vessel. Other boats carried a half-dozen boys who took turns to dive into the water and scoop up handfuls of riverbed sludge.
When Song’s cart pulled up at the dock he was the first to set his feet down on the jetty. Moored in front of him were two large wooden ships. He craned his neck to look up at the stern of the nearest, which swept upwards and away from him. Higher yet, the masts punctured the sky, fixing a lattice of rigging. He followed the thick swaying ropes down to the bulging hull of the boat; an anchor hung impotently at the bow. It was just as Zhu Wei had described.
Song turned back to his group. In that short time the atmosphere had already changed. There was an unease, like that around hunted animals.
‘Line up. In a line, I say.’ The Englishman in navy uniform struck out with his leather strap. He hit a man’s face and Song saw a welt appear across his cheek. There was a swelling of the crowd away from the Englishman. Song was shoved. He stumbled, but someone caught his wrist and kept him standing. ‘Thank you,’ Song managed to say.
‘Kid like you needs to be caught by someone.’ The man was gaunt but strong and with close-set eyes. ‘What you doing so young going alone ?’
‘Just got to,’ Song said flatly.
‘Too young. What they call you ?’
‘Song.’
‘I’m Wei Ling. You about to grow up, boy.’
The Englishman’s voice became louder. There was confusion on the dock. Song hated not knowing what the man was saying, not knowing what he should be doing. But he noticed some of the men started falling into line and Song copied them.
Pails of water appeared, as well as brick-sized bars of caustic soap. The men followed each other’s lead and crouched down to wash their bodies and their clothes, soaping and rinsing twice over. One man with scissors and a comb walked along the rows and chopped off everyone’s hair close to the skin. Song watched as his own hair fell to the ground, bursting like seed pods as it landed. He reached up to feel his scalp and the tufted patches the haircutter had missed.
‘Short is best on a boat,’ the haircutter whispered. ‘Itches less.’
‘What else ?’ Song asked.
‘Stay away from the sick and the short-tempered. Get off as soon as you can.’
‘Where ? After how many days ?’
‘Tell you that and you won’t get on, boy. Don’t count the days. Counting’s no good for anyone.’
‘Do you know the place where there’s sugar and gold ?’
The haircutter whistled. ‘Guiana. But that place is too far, boy. Nobody ever arrived there alive.’
‘How far ?’
But the haircutter was already out of earshot. Song put his shirt back on and tried to squeeze the water out of the corners of his sodden clothes. ‘Guiana,’ he repeated softly to himself. Someone kicked his foot to get his attention.
‘Who are you ?’
Song looked up. The boy was bigger than Song. Skinny, too, but taller. There were sores on the boy’s newly exposed scalp.
‘I’m Song from Lishui.’
‘I’m Hai,’ the boy replied. ‘I’m paying my own way.’
Song could not hide his surprise. ‘Are you ? I thought we didn’t have to pay.’
Hai chuckled. ‘You don’t have to. But it’s only fools who take up free passage.’
‘I’m the one going for free. Ask anyone here who’s the fool.’
‘You, my friend,’ Hai said, prodding Song hard in the chest. ‘You are. Go for free and you’re little more than a slave in chains. They say those days are over but it’s not true. Pay your way like me and you can choose your own destiny. Freedom. You don’t know the price of that until you lose it. I swear it’s more than some measly passage on a ship.’
Song shrugged at the boy. He didn’t fully understand what he was saying but it was enough to make him feel worried on the inside.
‘Of course if you don’t have any money then you’ve got no choice,’ Hai continued. ‘Die a quick death in this dump or take a gamble on a ship. I’d do what you’re doing too, if it makes you feel any better.’
Song didn’t feel any better. He wished this boy would shut his big mouth.
‘I can get on whatever boat I want, and get off wherever I choose, that’s the difference. Singapore, Penang, Madras, Calcutta, Mauritius. Like the sound of those ? I can decide on any place I fancy.’
‘Guiana,’ Song said. ‘That’s where I’m getting off.’
Hai whistled, like the haircutter had. ‘What do you know about Guiana anyway ?’
‘A lot,’ Song said. ‘Sugarcane grows there, thick and sweet. Rubber bleeds of its own accord from the bark of trees. Upcountry there are gold mines and diamond mines.’
‘That’s what they tell you,’ Hai said.
‘And what do you know about it ?’ Song said.
‘It’s a long, long way. Nobody arrives there alive. But I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. Crabs. You heard about the crabs ? Every May thousands of crabs march in from the sea, crawl up the walls of the houses on to the ceiling and fall down into pots of hot water on the stove.’ Hai moved his fingers like crabs sidling up and down imaginary walls. ‘You can eat crab all of May, even into June.’
Song’s eyes widened. ‘I love crab.’
‘There you go then,’ Hai said with a wink. ‘Didn’t say it was all bad, did I ? But you won’t catch me going that far. I’m thinking of Malaya. There’s rubber there too, you know. Or tea in India. Or anywhere else I fancy. Guiana’s not bad though – if you make it through the voyage.’
Song looked down at the square entrance of the dark hold and for a brief moment thought about changing his mind. But then he turned to climb backwards down the ladder. Down and down he descended. Below deck it was cool and damp and dark. The ceiling was too low to stand upright and Song crouched. A few slender shards of sunlight pierced through ill-fitting planks and he put his hand into the light to feel the warmth on his luminous fingers.
After a few minutes he began to make out the shapes of men, some from the cart and others who he had not seen before. They were arranging blankets and clothes to lie on the floor. Some were tying up hammocks they had brought; others were fixing rope across corners of the hold and hanging up wet clothes.
There were already groups forming. Song was astonished to see there were women too, some with babies and others pregnant like his mother. He wondered then if his own family could have come with him. He looked at the families, huddled close, resting their heads in the pillows of each other’s laps, speaking softly and stroking one another’s shorn heads. Unconsciously Song reached up to feel his own bristly scalp. He thought of his mother cradling him as he waited to hear her say she would let him go. In his mind he could feel the weight of Xiao Wan lying across his own lap, wheezing as he breathed; long nights of Xiao Mei’s chesty cough; the soft crying of Xiao Bo, even hungrier now.
Song settled himself. He took off his wet shirt and draped it over his empty swing-basket. That was all he had. Then he watched as more people clambered down the ladder into the hold. He recognised the gangly figure of Wei Ling. Then there was Hai; Song waved and the bigger boy moved towards him.
‘There’s space here if you like,’ Song said.
‘You ain’t got a hammock either ? Follow me,’ Hai said. ‘Better to be close to the middle. Less rolling around. You don’t have the smell of shit either. Buckets are always in the corners.’
Song was grateful. He picked up his basket and shirt, and followed Hai towards the central axis of the boat.
‘Have you been on a boat before then ?’ Song asked.
‘May as well have been,’ Hai said. ‘All my friends have. But I was earning good money in Guangzhou so I decided to stick around. An Englishman hired me. Taught me English. Paid me a good wage. That’s how I can pay my own passage. I know about boats. This one’s the Dartmouth. Made in England but it’s been all over the world.’
‘If things were so good, why are you leaving ?’
Hai hesitated. ‘You can’t stay in one place forever. Why are you leaving ?’
‘My family’s sick. There was nothing to eat. I promised I’d find work and come back with food and money.’
Hai snorted. ‘Don’t you have any idea how far you’re going ? You’re not going to come back. If you did, your family would either already be dead or have found their own way without an ounce of your help. The only help you’re giving them is there’s one less mouth to feed. Don’t kid yourself that you’re going to save them by getting on this boat. You’re on your own now. You won’t see them again.’
Song smashed his fist into Hai’s face. He was too quick for the bigger boy to duck.
‘You damn bastard,’ Hai cried out, as his hand went up to his bloodied nose.
‘Don’t you tell me about me and my family,’ Song said. ‘You don’t know anything about us.’ Then he offered his wet shirt to the boy. ‘You need to quit talking so much.’
Hai took the shirt and held it to his nose to stem the bleeding. He spoke through the blood and cloth. ‘You know I’m right. You won’t see them again.’
‘You’re wrong about that,’ Song said. Hai’s words frightened him. He changed the subject. ‘So you decided yet where you’re getting off ?’
‘Maybe Singapore,’ Hai replied, still nursing his injury. ‘Not far and good for office work, if you can speak English. I speak English like an Englishman. The English are lazy; they don’t want to learn other languages. Speak English and you can bet on double pay.’
‘How did you learn it ?’
‘Like I told you, from a real Englishman. Mine is proper English, not some pidgin. I could teach you for a sum. It’s easy. It was easy for me anyway.’
Song shrugged. ‘I don’t have any money.’
‘Half your food rations,’ Hai said. ‘I’m bigger than you so I need more food.’
Song knew there would not be enough to eat, but he was used to that. He nodded. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘You crazy ?’ A voice in the darkness interrupted them. ‘What you thinking agreeing to such nonsense ? You’ll be dead in a week.’
‘What do you know ?’ Hai retorted sharply. Song was surprised at Hai’s boldness; the voice belonged to a man much bigger than him. ‘Speaking English is more useful than a few grains of rice.’ He turned back to Song. ‘You want to speak English like a real Englishman ?’
The man snorted. ‘You listen to Li Bai, son. He knows what’s what. Forget this boy’s crazy idea.’
Hai ignored the man. ‘It’s your last chance,’ he pressed Song. ‘I could teach you a few words that could save your life. Learn English from me and you’ll find your way wherever you go.’
‘Is that what they speak in Guiana ?’ Song asked. He didn’t dare look at Li Bai.
‘Of course. Everywhere the English go.’
Song remembered the confusion on the dock when the uniformed Englishman was shouting at them and nobody knew what he was saying.
‘Starting today ?’ Song asked.
‘Starting tomorrow,’ Hai replied. ‘When the boat leaves.’
The boat did not move for several days and their quarters became hotter and more cramped. By the time the hatch slammed shut there was not a bare patch of floor. The shaft of light extinguished as quickly as forked lightning and the hold was suddenly quiet. Song heard the shouting of sailors above; footsteps pounding the deck; the squeaking of rubbing ropes. The Dartmouth shuddered and seemed to lower as it pulled away.
Song lay down, his back flat against the wooden boards, and allowed himself a smile. He had done what he had promised himself: left home to board a ship that would take him to a far-off land – to find sugar and gold and diamonds. Then he would come back and save his family.
The seas were heavy and the air unmoving. But Song didn’t mind about that; it was the darkness that got to him. Not being sure of when day became night, or night became day, with no sense of the passage of time. He was glad of his new friend. Hai punctured the darkness with his fantasies, his ideas, his dreams.
Almost everyone else complained of the motion of the swell of the sea, the rise and fall of the waves, the churning inside. Some were sick, including Hai. He said he didn’t feel like teaching. Song didn’t feel well enough to do much learning either. Families fanned each other, breaking their rhythm to swipe at a fly. One of the men, Dai Jie, played a flute to pass the day. He sang ballads, folk songs, mournful heartbroken tunes. Song drifted between restless sleep and a semiconscious haze. The days were marked only by meals: a bowl of rice and a cup of water twice a day. After eating the men went to the buckets. When the women followed, the men turned away.
Before the end of the first week the first body had to be cleared. They said he was sick when he came on board. Song remembered his hacking cough but could not picture his face. Besides his name nobody knew anything more about him. One of the women, Ji Liu, shrouded his body in sacking and Li Bai volunteered to take him up the ladder. Everyone watched as Li Bai slowly climbed each rung with the dead man slumped across his strong shoulders. He knocked hard with his fist on the underside of the hatch. It opened and there was an exchange. Li Bai lifted himself out, steadying his load. Song thought he heard a dull splash as the body hit the water. He flinched. Not for the man who he didn’t know and couldn’t remember, but for all the dead men he had known – his uncle, the men taken by the flood, his own father. So many had left his world. Here was another. Li Bai appeared again in the open hatch, carrying only the torn sacking in his hands.
Clearing the dead became a regular occurrence. They mostly passed away in a fever. One woman died in labour. Her screams were so loud that the crew sent down the ship doctor. He delivered twin boys but both were dead. Then the mother bled to death. Song buried his head in his shirt to try to muffle first the woman’s cries, and then the moans of her grieving husband. He thought of his sister Xiao Mei who was born with a twin brother but the boy had died. His mother refused to feed her when she was a baby. A woman in the village had to come to the house to give her milk.
Song wished he had brought his little sister with him. Maybe his mother would have let her go. His knew his father wouldn’t have if he had have been alive. Xiao Mei had been his favourite. Song remembered her standing on the track as his own cart rolled away. The only one who did not say goodbye.
By the time the Dartmouth docked in Singapore, Song had lost count of the days, just like the haircutter had told him he would. He listened to the bustling activity up on deck: the heavy wooden crates banging down on the boards and the dull thud of thrown sacks. There were long hours of creaking quiet, and then sequences of shouting and swearing.
More than twenty of them left the boat there but nearly double that number joined. The hold became even more crowded and tempers flared. A few sharp words turned into brawls. One man bled to death overnight with a knife between his ribs, either too weak to ask for help or too tired of living.
‘I’m going to stay on,’ Hai announced.
Song looked surprised. ‘Didn’t know you were still thinking of getting off.’
‘I can get off anytime I like.’
‘So you keep telling me,’ Song said. But he was secretly relieved. He admired the older boy’s confidence and was grateful for his English lessons. Song was learning new sounds, beginning to understand the meaning of words and starting to form sentences.
‘Want to know two words that’ll get you a long way ?’ Hai asked.
‘Sure.’
‘“Yes, sir,” simple as that,’ Hai said. ‘No matter what they say, just keep repeating ‘Yes, sir’ and you’ll be all right.’
‘I will,’ Song nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.’
He felt like he was making good progress. He didn’t care about the halved rations; it was as if he had long ago stopped feeling hungry. Besides, Hai was the only one on board who he could pretend to call a good friend. The rest were nice enough, but too focused on their own survival to be bothered with him. Hai took an interest. Song hoped he’d stay on. He needed him to stay on.
‘Why don’t you come all the way to Guiana ?’ Song asked. ‘You’ll have my extra rations all the way. Remember everything we know about the place ?’
Hai paused. ‘Might do that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t plan it that way but maybe I will. ’Cause I can.’
‘Think about all those crabs,’ Song said. ‘Thousands marching in from the sea, crawling into cooking pots of their own accord. Imagine the soft sweet flesh.’
‘I told you about all that,’ Hai sneered.
‘And with our English, remember we’ll get double pay. We can cut cane or pick mangoes or work in some Englishman’s house.’
Hai softened. ‘Okay, Song. I’ll come to Guiana. Let’s go and eat crabs all day and all night and all in between.’
Song was glad of the new passengers. It was as if he instantly graduated upon their arrival. They looked no different but had a strange staccato accent – like a knife on a chopping board – in a language that sounded familiar but too distant to be understood. There were some who spoke English with even greater fluency than Hai. Song tested out some of his new phrases.
‘Good morning,’ he said to one man. ‘I can speak English. My name is Song. I work hard. What is your name ?’
The man laughed. ‘I’m Wang. I like the way you speak.’
Song was pleased at the sound of the new words on his lips. It did not feel like his own voice he was hearing but someone older, someone who had lived longer than him.
They said Singapore brought the fever. Song watched as more and more of the passengers around him fell ill. At first there was only a mild stomach ache, but that quickly deteriorated into severe diarrhoea. The routine of the buckets after meals – men first, women second – was abandoned. People were soiling themselves in their clothes. The stench thickened.
More and more went down with the symptoms. The first casualty was blamed for bringing the sickness on board and nobody mourned his death. He passed his last hours screaming for water, even with a cup held to his lips. His skin was burning hot, before it became cold, lifeless, seemingly waxen.
Song had never doubted he would reach the sugar plantations of Guiana. In fact, he had been feeling increasingly confident of how his life would take shape after he got off the boat. He had Zhu Wei’s words in his head; he could now speak some English; he had his friend Hai by his side; he knew a lot more than when he had left home.
But then one night he woke up with searing cramps in his belly. He hoped it might only be hunger pangs, that familiar squeezing sensation which he had learned to push aside and ignore. But within hours he was bent double with the pain. He could hear himself letting out a groan with every breath.
‘You’ve got it,’ Hai said. ‘You’ve got it like the rest of them.’
Song felt too weak to respond with any conviction. ‘I haven’t,’ he whispered over and over. ‘I haven’t.’
‘You’ve got it bad.’
‘Shut up.’ Song rolled over and brought his knees up to his chest.
He watched Hai collect together his things and move away from him. ‘I should have left the boat in Singapore,’ he heard his friend mutter.
The words hit Song hard and he was afraid. Afraid of losing Hai at the next port; afraid of how ill he was becoming; afraid of dying. For the first time, he began to think that he might not make it. His mother would never hear from him again, unaware of what had happened. She would have no idea what had become of her eldest son. He thought of his papa, and implored him now to keep him safe.
Song curled up on the floor. He closed his eyes and wanted to leave behind everything he knew. The fever was rising in him. His whole body shook. His groans, his bleating voice became a part of his deranged dreams. He saw a face above him and heard his name. There was a woman singing. He heard himself call out for his mother as he slipped between the darkness of sleep and the darkness of the hold. So this was how it was to face death, he thought. A slipping away with no trace.
Yet someone was trying to part his lips and force him to eat. He tasted soft wet rice in his mouth. With every grain that he managed to swallow he could feel his strength returning. The fever began to wane. He started to think clearly again. To let himself believe he might get better.
Song had no concept of how long he was ill, but slowly days began to take some form again. He discovered it was Ji Liu who had saved him. She had nursed him with her own rations of rice and water. Song was moved by her kindness. Even when he had the strength to sit up on his own, she held him in her arms and gently fed him by hand. ‘You’re too young to be away from your mother, Song,’ she’d whisper. ‘I’ll take care of you till you get to where you’re going. Too young to be on your own. Too young to die.’
Song was heavily weakened by the fever and it took a long while for him to feel well again. He slept in such long stretches that he once overheard Hai comment that he thought Song was dead. He was unsteady on his feet. He found himself crawling to the buckets, unable to raise himself on his two feet.
But in time, he began to feel himself again. He even started to help look after the dying, as a way of saying thank you to Ji Liu. He was no longer afraid of the disease. He had beaten it. He could beat it again if he had to.
About half the boat was sick. Song copied Ji Liu and held cupfuls of water to the lips of the men and women who cried out with thirst. In between he fanned their feverish bodies. There was a new camaraderie on the ship, as if the passengers had begun to realise they could only survive by helping each other. Song was one of the few who had made it. Some hadn’t even caught it, like Hai. Nobody knew why some were struck down, and some were spared.
One night the groaning of a man woke Song and he semi-consciously pulled him over, cradling his upper body until they both fell asleep. The next morning the man’s skin was cold next to his own.
Song continued to hold the man in his arms; he believed he could still feel a faint pulse in his chest. But when Li Bai came to carry him away Song didn’t protest. Nobody wanted the dead around any longer than necessary.
‘He is dead, isn’t he ?’ Song asked.
‘You tried your best, son.’
‘I thought he might come around . . .’
Li Bai shook his head.
Song sighed. ‘What’s it like up there ? On deck ?’
‘Better than down here,’ Li Bai replied.
‘Can you see land ?’
‘I ain’t seen no land, but there’s not much time to look around.’ Li Bai closed his eyes. ‘The sea is bright. The air is cool. Even with a dead man on your back it’s good to be up there.’
‘Can I come up one time ?’
Li Bai laughed. ‘Think you can lift a dead man ?’
‘I mean to help you with the sacking,’ Song persisted. ‘After you throw out the body I can bring the sacking back down to Ji Liu to wrap the next man. I’m quicker than I look. I’d get it back before you know it. Then the next body would be ready before you were down.’
Li Bai smiled at him. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘You awake ?’ Hai said.
Song opened his eyes. He looked across at his friend, who was on his back staring up at the ceiling.
‘I’m getting out in Madras,’ Hai said.
Song sat up. ‘What ?’
‘I’m getting out, that’s all. Figure Madras is the place.’
Song had dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘What about Guiana ? We were going together, remember.’
‘Like I said before, I can get out whenever I want. That’s the difference.’
Song laid his head back down upon his folded shirt. ‘I know. You’ve told me enough damn times.’
‘Guiana’s too far,’ Hai went on. ‘I’m not so sure about the place any more. I like the sound of Madras. Heard there were jobs on the railways. Driving trains. Office work. Collecting tickets. Nice clean work.’
‘Never said so before,’ Song mumbled.
‘I just decided, that’s why.’ Hai’s voice was firm. ‘I’m done with this wretched boat. Everyone’s sick or dying.’
Song had repeatedly imagined them working together in Guiana. He had pictured them cutting cane or climbing mango trees to collect fruit from the highest branches. Or maybe Hai would find work in an Englishman’s house and get him a job there, too.
‘Might be fever in Madras, too,’ Song said. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’
‘You don’t know what I know. In fact, I know a lot about Madras. Textiles. That’s what they do there. Clothes for rich people. Good work for someone like me. They speak English. Like me. If you’d paid your way you could get off too.’
‘You can’t be sure of Madras,’ Song said. He didn’t want his friend to leave. ‘But we’ve heard enough that we can be sure of Guiana.’
It had been several weeks since his conversation with Li Bai and Song had not brought it up again. Instead he watched as the big man pulled himself up the ladder, another limp body slung across his shoulders.
The atmosphere in the hold was sombre. Two more had died of fever overnight, including Ji Liu. Song wouldn’t allow himself to cry in front of everyone, but he hurt inside. She had saved him and promised to take care of him until they reached Guiana.
Li Bai lifted her up on his shoulders. ‘Gonna come up with me then ?’ he asked.
Song realised Li Bai was addressing him. He was so surprised he couldn’t speak.
‘Changed your mind ?’ Li Bai asked.
Song jumped to his feet.
He followed Li Bai up the ladder. It had been many weeks since Song had descended into the hold and his legs trembled as he climbed.
‘You all right ?’ Li Bai called out, looking down.
‘Right behind you,’ Song said.
At the opening of the hatch Song crawled out on his stomach, squinting in the light. He couldn’t see anything in the strong sunshine.
He heard Li Bai whisper under his breath. ‘Don’t let me down, boy.’
Song had just begun to make out the blurred shapes of figures when Li Bai gave him an order. ‘Take it down. Quick now.’
Song reached out and felt the sacking as it was pushed into his hands. ‘Hurry,’ Li Bai said. ‘Another body needs wrapping.’