China Business: The Kerosene Creek Mystery, #2

By Ian E Hart

"Hey Jindy, when you finish that China business, you come back here, ay" said Jimmy Sugarbag. Jindy Kelly arrives in the plague port of Hong Kong in 1894 She is looking for the enigmatic Johnny Fong, who may know the whereabouts of her mother. Her quest propels her from the heart of the British colonial establishment to the festering animosity of the Chinese slums. She discovers that Johnny is now a revolutionary outlaw, her mother is not what she seemed, and the answers to the mystery are back home in the socialist paradise of Kerosene Creek.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pigface Books
• Release date: Jan 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223339366

Ian E Hart

I have worked with words, ideas, images and stories all my life: as an academic in Australia, Europe and China, as writer-director of over 30 broadcast documentary and fiction films., as a playwright and theatre maker. Now, after 60 years of grafting at typewriter and computer keyboards, I have narrowed my focus to the gentle art of novel writing. I live with my first and only wife in Canberra, Australia. We have three grown-up children and four grandchildren. We try to re-visit Kong Kong as often as we can.

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We acknowledge the Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Gundungurra people, the traditional owners of the land in the Southern Highlands of NSW and the ACT, where part of the book is set, and where all of it was written.

Copyright © Ian E. Hart, 2024

Published by Pigface Books, 2024

R:26–2-24

PROLOGUE

(from Forgetting Business)

A woman with an Australian accent walked through the gate of the Man Mo temple in Hollywood Road, Hong Kong. She was not one of the rich tourists in silk dresses and big hats who arrived in sedan chairs and rickshaws—her clothes were coarse cotton and well-worn and her hands were calloused. Ling estimated she was forty or fifty years old, and it was clear that she had led a hard life. She had wide shoulders, narrow hips, dusky skin, and deep brown eyes, and when she smiled, it lit up the room. But the most striking thing about her was her flaming red hair. Ling leaned across and held up a lock of Jindy’s hair.

Like yours.

Jindy held her breath. The VM stopped sulking and leaned forward to listen.

She had heard that I planned to go to Australia to look for the gold crucifix. She said that if I managed to meet you, I should give you this. Ling passed Jindy a small square of paper, She was sure it would mean something to you.

It was a crude drawing from the game of Hangman. The body on the scaffold was complete, but the rope was missing, and the puzzle word was just three letters: MAY.

I think I’d better come to Hong Kong with you, said the Virgin Mary.

Three years have passed…

PART ONE

Plague Port

CHAPTER ONE

A death At sea

SS Taiyuan, 15 June 1894.

The death of a passenger held no novelty for Captain Nelson, but the scene that greeted him as the steward opened the door of the third-class cabin was disturbing. The stench of engine oil, damp clothes, sweat, and vomit assaulted his senses. In the lower bunk he made out the shape of an emaciated body, covered to the chin with a damp, grey sheet, the Asian nose made thinner and sharper by death, the wide-open eyes fixed on the rosary beads swinging from the bunk above. Grey bristles poked through the tightly drawn scalp. The dead nun’s companion, on her knees beside the bunk, resembled a dark mushroom sprouting from the linoleum. Her lips were moving soundlessly, her eyes fixed on an ugly black crucifix leaning on the bulkhead above the locker.

When did this happen, Sister?

The nun twitched, as though caught nodding off in mass, and scrambled to her feet. A lock of red hair escaped from beneath her coif, and she clumsily tried to tuck it back in.

The Lord called his beloved daughter in the night, Captain. When I summoned her for Lauds ...

Catholic mumbo-jumbo.

What was the cause of death, do you know? the captain interrupted.

Our Sister has been a martyr to seasickness ...

I need to know if she is infectious, his irritation increasing, I have fifty passengers to think of, let alone my crew.

Sister Thomas begged me to take her ashore in Haiphong. She had an affinity for the place, as though an explanation was needed for wanting to be buried in such a heathen country.

The steward handed the captain his reading glasses, and he ran his finger down the manifest. The deceased is Sister Thomas, embarked Sydney? So, you must be Sister Justine, am I right? You are bound for Hong Kong?

That is ... was our mission, Captain.

Christ almighty. He shook his head. Do these nuns have no sense at all?

Are ye aware that Hong Kong is under quarantine for bubonic plague? He pointed at the body under the sheet, D’ye think she ...?

We came from Sydney, Captain. Neither of us has been in contact with the plague.

To the best of your knowledge. The captain’s temper was on a short fuse. He turned on the steward. And where’s the doctor?

Dr. Lazlo went ashore in Haiphong ... the steward hesitated. I don’t think he came back aboard, sir.

Passed out in some poxy bordello, I’ll be bound ... Captain Nelson remembered whom he was talking to. Excuse my French, Sister. Our doctor has done this before ... He consulted the manifest again. We have two passengers listed as doctors. One’s a Chinaman—Doctor Song something-or-other, and a Frenchman who just joined us in Haiphong. He passed the list back to the steward. Better call them both.

The young nun stood her ground defiantly, despite the tears in her eyes. Sister Thomas and I have some medical training, Captain. We know what the plague looks like.

She’s no older than our daughter Isla, Captain Nelson thought, and just as contrary.

I’m sure you do, Sister, softening his tone, But we need a qualified doctor to sign the death certificate. He turned to the steward. I want this cabin sealed and fumigated.

*

According to the brochure the agent showed them, the SS Taiyuan was the fastest and most modern vessel in the China Shipping Co’s fleet. It could make 12 knots, powered by a triple-expansion steam engine capable of 1,600 horsepower. The agent looked utterly discombobulated when Sister Justine asked for details of the cylinder size, stroke length, and r.p.m., and he promptly turned to the page with illustrations of the luxurious first-class staterooms, the comfortable second class cabins, the teak-walled saloon and the cool and breezy promenade deck.

Unfortunately, the nuns realised their third-class cabin (which was not illustrated in the brochure) was tiny and stuffy, and its proximity to the water line forced them to keep the porthole closed on anything but the calmest seas. They hung a replica of the Shroud of Turin and a picture of the Sacred Heart above the bunks, draped the bedside locker with a lace altar cloth, added a candle and a Bible, and suspended the black crucifix from a loose rivet on the iron bulkhead. Ling surveyed the effect and said, At a stretch of the imagination, our little hot-box could pass muster as a holy grotto.

After the ship weighed anchor in Sydney, Jindy was seasick all the way up the east coast of Australia. Ling brought her porridge, gruel, and tea from the third-class dining room, but usually ended up eating it herself. Once Jindy recovered, the passengers became used to the sight of the two nuns pacing the deck, saying their rosaries or writing their journals in the third class saloon. In Singapore, they watched the Malay stevedores on the dock, stripped to the waist, rolling barrels onto carts, while Chinese coolies carried impossible loads on bamboo poles slung across their shoulders. Overweight European men in linen suits and sola topis, ordered the locals about like servants, and impossibly slim local women in silk dresses slit to the thigh and with painted faces, smoked cigarettes in long holders, and only came alive when gentlemen approached them bearing money. They watched two athletic men in a lion suit and another with a ball, dancing to the music of a drum and flute, as a noisy crowd farewelling a dapper Chinese gentleman with a neatly trimmed moustache and a hearty laugh. His companions escorted him to the gangway, cheering and slapping him on the back. The man’s friends were so lavish with gifts, he had to ask a sailor to help carry his booty aboard.

At the time, the following incident did not seem important, but Jindy recorded it in her journal:

[Jindy’s Journal]

As I was walking a circuit of the deck reciting my afternoon Rosary, I observed the dapper Chinese gentleman under the shade of the bridge house, in a tête-à-tête with Ling (aka Sister Thomas). When they saw me, they promptly halted their conversation. The gentleman hastily passed over some small packages, then disappeared into his stateroom and closed the door. I asked Ling who he was, but she only said, Such a nice man. He gave us a few little luxuries he thought we might enjoy. The packages contained biscuits and crystallised fruit and a tin of tea with a picture of the Queen on one side, a misty mountain, and pagoda on the other. Ling clapped her hands. Lapsang Souchong from Fujian! I’m sure I grimaced at the memory of the foul tasting brew. She opened the tin and inhaled a nose-full of the scent. It is smoky and spicy, don’t you think? I told her I still thought it smelled like burnt socks, just as bad as the last time she offered me a cup.

The next day, Ling began feeling ill. The doctor diagnosed seasickness. She couldn’t keep food down, but then she developed a fever and sweats, and was wracked by gastric pain and convulsions. Her throat contracted and her tongue turned black. Dr. Laszlo prescribed Laudanum, but it made her condition worse. In the end, the only thing she could swallow was the Fujian tea.

In Haiphong, Ling had a premonition that she was dying, and she begged me to take her ashore to the cathedral so she could confess. She was too weak to walk, so I left her alone with a heavy heart and went ashore in search of a priest. A bewildering variety of peoples crowded the dock, and I could hear a mixture of rapid-fire French and the strange, sing-song tones of Vietnamese around me. I tried asking directions in the rudimentary French that Ling had taught me, but I could not make myself understood. I returned to the ship only just in time to read aloud the Last Rites from Ling’s breviary.

*

She recognised Dr. Song immediately. He was the man they had watched boarding in Singapore—the donor of the smoky Fujian tea. Western haircut, three-piece suit, trace of an American accent? He ignored the young nun and asked for the porthole to be opened. He raised the sheet covering Sister Thomas's face and held a small mirror to her lips. (Keeps it for trimming his moustache, whispered the small voice in her ear.) The glass fogged — not a sign of life, but of the humidity in the cabin. He felt for a wrist pulse, then solemnly declared the patient to be, indeed, deceased. He could not be more specific. He no longer practised medicine and had scant experience of infectious diseases. (Why won’t he look at her? The Virgin Mary whispered indignantly.

The captain asked Dr. Song to sign the log to that effect. He left hurriedly, giving no sign that he had been talking to the cadaver just a few days earlier.

Dr. Marceau, about the same age, looked cool in a suit of tropical linen. Scrubby beard, awkward but fussy, very little English. He had come aboard in Haiphong and was also bound for Hong Kong. He signalled for the door to be closed and Sister Justine to remain, "Pour la bienséance."

To maintain propriety, she translated for the captain’s benefit, surprised she remembered so much French from her brief lessons.

Dr. Marceau removed the altar cloth, bible, and candle from the bedside locker and crossed himself before the crucifix. He wiped the wooden surface down with alcohol and laid out a multi-bladed pocketknife, a pair of scissors, tweezers, a spoon, a pencil, a small notebook, and a packet of envelopes. He lifted off the sheet and folded it neatly, observing an emaciated Oriental woman of indeterminate age, dressed in a stained cotton shift. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot from constant retching. Her tongue was black and a white crust rimmed her lips. The doctor scraped a sample into one of the envelopes.

"Dites-moi … the symptoms."

It began after Singapore. She was seasick. She could not keep any food down.

"Quel genre ... of food?"

Biscuits, compote. She showed him the box of dried fruit. I soaked it in hot water with some sugar.

The doctor broke off a lump and dropped it into another envelope, then a spoonful of the sugar into a third. "Problèmes d'estomac? Diarrhoea?"

Both.

Convulsions?

Yes.

Heartbeat—regular or ...?

So fast you thought her heart might jump out of her chest.

As high as 140 beats per minute.

You measure?

I am a nurse. She showed him her notebook with the hourly record of Sister Thomas’s vital signs.

He lifted the enamel mug and sniffed it. "She drink from the… robinet?" pointing to the tap over the basin.

I made tea for her. She showed him the tin caddy. The hot water came from the galley.

He took a pinch of tea and sniffed. Lapsang souchong, he said, and dropped a teaspoon of the leaves into another envelope. He asked to examine her notebook while she arranged her dead companion’s hands and threaded rosary beads through the stiffening fingers.

Dr. Marceau reported to the captain that he found no indications of plague; her symptoms appeared to show poisoning of some sort. Perhaps salmonella from food, or arsenic from rat poison. On the other hand, it could be any of a dozen tropical parasites. An autopsy would be necessary to establish the cause of death. He would write a report for the Hong Kong coroner.

Not possible, the captain set his jaw firmly. The damned refrigeration unit has gone kaput and there’s nowhere to store the body. There’s two days’ sailing to Hong Kong and in this heat—to be blunt—she’ll be rancid before we dock. I must think of the other passengers. We’ll give her a sea burial. I trust you won’t object, Sister?

He thinks you’re a pushover. Don’t let him get away with it, the voice whispered in her ear.

Will there be a priest? asked Sister Justine.

A ship’s captain is authorised to conduct funerals… and weddings for that matter. Personally, I’m a Quaker, but we both worship the same God, unless I’m mistaken.

Insist on a priest!

She ignored the voice. I’m sure a Protestant prayer will not keep our sister from a seat at the Lord’s table. But I will say a few words in Latin, if you don’t mind. She looked the captain in the eye and smiled. To satisfy the Pope.

Captain Nelson thought to himself it was the same smile his daughter Isla would flash when she wanted to get around him. His flinty sailor’s heart softened a little. He nodded towards the bosun, Andy will see to the shroud. To the steward, No matter what the doctor thinks, I want this cabin fumigated. And to the nun, We must disinfect your uniform, Sister.

I’d like to stay with our sister as long as possible, she said. Pray for her soul.

You can have an hour, then Andy will need the body. He consulted his watch. It’s fourteen-twenty now. We’ll put her to rest at seventeen hundred on the afterdeck. He turned abruptly and clattered up the companionway. The bosun produced a carpenter's ruler and rapidly measured the body.

She replaced the Bible on the locker and knelt before the crucifix. She tried to clear her mind and remember the psalm. "Tibi, tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci…"

I have a bad feeling about this, interrupted the Virgin Mary, You should have stood up to him.

*

At the rear of the ship, Sister Thomas' body lay on a plank supported by two trestles. The nun shared her canvas shroud with an iron gear wheel, a shoemaker’s last, and several lumps of rusty engine parts. The captain, first mate, and bosun stood to one side of the plank. She stood alone on the other side. A Filipino sailor, looking cool and comfortable in his starched dress uniform, took his place at the head of the plank. Dr. Marceau and Dr. Song, plus a dozen curious passengers, watched from a respectful distance. One passenger stood apart from the rest—a tall man, swarthy skinned with an eye patch. He appeared more interested in the doctors than in the ceremony. When he noticed Sister Justine looking at him, he grinned back at her, showing a gold tooth. She thought of a wolf.

Look away, whispered the Virgin Mary. He’s the Devil, waiting to snag our sister’s soul.

She scanned the horizon for a landmark, a building, a mountain, so in the future she could locate Sister Thomas on a map. She tried to concentrate her mind on the pitifully small canvas-wrapped parcel before her. The oil-stained cloth, cut from a hatch cover, rough-sewn with black cobbler’s twine. Not a proper vessel for a nun’s last voyage. She wanted to tell someone that her friend’s fine needlework was famous in a dozen convents.

Vanity was not one of her sins. The Virgin Mary shimmered in the salty air above the railing. The Lord won’t judge her by the stitching of her shroud.

Her last memory of the woman who had become her closest friend—the desperate face, the fierce gaze burning in the dark sockets, the cracked voice straining to speak, Mother… Mother May…

A nun’s dying thoughts gravitate instinctively to the Holy Mother Mary, who will suffer for her, pronounced the voice in her ear.

The captain opened his prayer book and read: Unto Almighty God, we commend the soul of our sister departed, and we commit her body to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jindy reached into her pocket and gripped the smooth stone that Jimmy Sugarbag had brought to her—her mother’s gurugulaŋ, the magic giba the feather-foot man had given to May twenty-three years ago. It had the power to cure the mind, but ultimately, death was more powerful. She hadn’t prepared a eulogy for Sister Thomas, but when the captain nodded to her, it poured out like a torrent from a karst spring.

Sister Thomas, you were born Louise Simone in the French colony of Annam. You took the name of the blessed Saint Thomas the sceptic when you became a nun. You brought comfort to the sick and downtrodden in China, and the goldfields of New South Wales. Your present mission was to bring medical and spiritual comfort to victims of the black death. But… she paused, then took a deep breath, But it was not to be.

She looked up into the red ball of the sun hanging above the horizon at the end of the ship’s wake. She addressed it directly in a voice choking with bitterness. Why? Why did you deny your daughter time to complete her mission on earth? Why did you make her suffer so much pain? What is your… she paused, Your excuse for casting your daughter aside like a… she waved her hand in the direction of the shroud, Like a bag of…?

The watching passengers looked away in embarrassment, grew restless, then began whispering among themselves. At length, she recovered her poise and laid her hand on the rough canvas. "Lord, grant that Sister Thomas sleep in peace beneath your waters until you waken her to glory. In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti. Amen."

The captain nodded. The sailor lifted his end of the plank. Nothing happened. He shook the plank, but the shroud would not move. The first mate stepped in to assist and they raised the plank higher, until… Sister Thomas, weighed down with more ironware than necessary, abruptly overcame the forces of friction and slid down the plank, across the railing and into the foaming wake.

Captain Nelson saluted. Jindy untangled the string of rosary beads from her fingers and threw it in a high arc so that it landed in the receding ripples. A few of the watchers clapped. It was not clear whether the applause was for Sister Thomas or for Sister Justine’s prodigious throw.

As she turned away, Dr. Marceau plucked at her sleeve. "Un moment s'il vous plait, ma soeur. Le thé… the Lapsang Souchong. Do you drink?"

She shook her head. I don’t like the taste.

*

Captain Nelson removed his reading glasses and held up the two passports. Sister Justine, excuse my Quaker ignorance, but in this document your name is Miss Jindy Fiadh Kelly. Can ye understand how I am a tad confused?

When nuns make our vows, Captain, it is traditional to take on a saint’s name—it means we are beginning a new life in Christ. To my knowledge, there is no Saint Jindy, so I have taken on the name Saint Justine, who was martyred in the third century and is depicted on icons with a unicorn, symbolising virginity. But I will answer to Sister Jindy if you prefer.

I see. There is one other thing. At the time we were laying your companion to rest this afternoon, the steward interrupted a man trying to gain entry to your cabin. He was described as dark-skinned, possibly Indian, or Middle Eastern, dressed in a European suit. He may have worn an eye patch. Does anyone come to mind? Jindy shook her head. Can you think of anything valuable he might have been looking for? Money perhaps?

The only cash we own is in an envelope lodged with the Purser.

Well, perhaps he was confused, but best be on your guard against thieves. The immediate problem is that we need to seal and fumigate your cabin, so I must find somewhere else to stow you. And after what ye have been through, it would be cruel indeed to send ye back below the waterline. He stood up, I have a proposition that I hope will not offend ye, Sister.

The captain led her down the companionway to the main deck, where a Malay steward was waiting outside a stateroom door. My wife would be honoured if ye would be her guest for the rest of the voyage. Ye’ll have complete privacy. Razak will look after ye. The inscrutable face of the steward appeared at the captain’s shoulder. "Give him your clothes to fumigate and wash. Feel free to look for something suitable to wear from my wife's wardrobe until we clean and fumigate your clothes.

That is most generous, Captain, she said, But I don’t need any special…

He interrupted her with a dismissive wave, If ye feel up to it, I hope we may have the pleasure of your company at dinner.

The steward opened the stateroom door. Two cheap carpet bags slouched disreputably on the Persian rug inside, like a pair of shabby beggars trying to look inconspicuous in a seraglio.

This captain wife private cabin, said Razak. She not on board at this time. He handed her a cotton laundry bag, wrinkling his nose as he spoke, Captain order your dress and all clothings to laundry. Leave outside door please. Return tomorrow. He opened a cupboard displaying a vertical cascade of dresses. Then he slid open a drawer, presenting a breathtaking flower garden of brightly coloured undergarments. Captain say please use Missy Nelson clothes. She your size or thereabout. He bowed slightly and opened the door. Dinner at eight. I will ring. And he was gone.

A double bed with starched white sheets, a square window with curtains, a low table with an ashtray and easy chairs, a roll-top desk, and—I must be dreaming—a private bathroom with a shower, hot and cold taps, multi-coloured bottles of lotions and oils, scented soap, soft towels.

In the convent, nuns had to wear a shift while bathing in cold water.

Lead us not into temptation, admonished the stern voice in her ear.

Try to stop me. She closed and latched the door, removed her habit, sweat-stained cotton knickers and black woollen stockings, and stepped naked under the shower. She shivered with exquisite pleasure as the needles of hot water massaged her exhausted body.

Athanasian wench! accused the Virgin Mary, taking care not to be splashed herself.

What’s wrong with being naked?

Flaunting your body in front of men.

I’d never do that.

You went naked swimming with Johnny Fong. He looked at your titties.

I didn’t have any titties. I was too young.

You looked at his willy.

He kept his hands in front.

She washed her hair for the first time in weeks, with Mrs. Nelson’s jasmine-scented French shampoo. Wrapped herself in a towel as big as a bedsheet. Packed her nun’s uniform into the laundry bag. Then, with a quiver of guilty thrill, pulled on a pair of green silk culottes françaises from the extravagant underwear drawer. Lay down in the centre of the enormous bed, cradled in soft pillows.

Is it a sin to accept such luxury through the sacrifice of another? she asked aloud.

Quicunque vult, commented the Mother of Sorrows. Whomsoever wishes to be saved.

Was it the memory of her friend and mentor Ling, or the sensuous afterglow of the shower that gave her hands permission to stray? First, they lightly cupped her breasts until her nipples stood erect. They slid downward, brushing her stomach, sending thrilling ripples across her skin. Finally, they slipped beneath the elastic waist-band of Mrs. Nelson’s knickers.

"Salvus esse, she whispered before oblivion overtook her. Be saved."

CHAPTER TWO

The Athanasian Wench

SHE fell into a restless sleep, haunted by images of the tiny weighted canvas shroud descending into the black depths of the South China Sea. What if the doctors had been mistaken and its occupant was alive but catatonic? She imagined Ling waking up, unable to move, inundated, drowning, suffocating, terrified… Jindy sat up, her heart pounding like an engine in her chest. Then she lay back down again and drifted into a dream: a vivid replay of her appearance on the steps of the Berrivale convent, starving, wounded, voiceless, with no memory of her first 16 years on this earth. Then the coincidental arrival of Sister Thomas, the Annamite nun, who said she had studied psychotherapy in Vienna and could cure the wild girl’s hysterical amnesia by plumbing her unconscious and teasing out the trauma that had stolen her memory. Sister Serendipity, the nuns had called her. The two of them returned to the abandoned village where people had said she was born with one foot in the spirit world. Kerosene Creek was deserted, its houses vacant and lifeless, their former inhabitants mere spectres lingering silently beneath the doorways. The villagers who had dutifully believed mad Henry Orbiston’s promise of salvation, and obediently drank his uisce beatha, Irish for water of life, then disappeared into oblivion. Faces drifted through her dreams, like ships: Colm Duff, Johnny Fong, Rose McGowan, her mother May Kelly… And constantly in the background, the memory of the bushranger’s gold nugget gleaming softly in the firelight. Sister Thomas, having finally winnowed out the trauma that transformed Jindy’s mind into a tabula rasa, delivered the surprising news that she was a fraud. She had come all the way from Hong Kong at Johnny Fong’s command, not to rescue Jindy, but to recover the gold nugget. Ling persuaded her to flee the convent and board a train to Sydney, where she could earn a qualification before setting off to Hong Kong. It was Ling who thought it would be safest to disguise