There was a time, in my callow youth, when the discovery that I was running not opium but guns would have had me bolting frantically for the nearest patch of timber, protesting that it was nothing to do with me, constable, and the chap in charge would be along in a moment. For opium, into China, was a commonplace if not entirely respectable commodity, whereas firearms, into anywhere, are usually highly contraband, and smuggling ’em is as often as not a capital offence. But if twenty years of highly active service had taught me anything, it was that there is a time to flee in blind panic, and a time to stand fast and think. Given the leisure, I daresay I’d have replaced that chest lid, slapped the slut who was staring wildly at me, and taken a turn on deck to reflect, thus:

      Had Mrs Carpenter spun me a web of yarn, and were she and dear Josiah aware that their cargo consisted of the very latest repeating weapons? Undoubtedly; Josiah had supervised the loading of the chests, and what he knew his wife knew, too. Very good, to whom should a God-fearing British clergyman and his wife be smuggling guns in China? Not to any British recipient, and certainly not to the Manchoo Imperials – which left the Taiping rebels. Utterly incredible – until one reflected that there were Taiping enthusiasts among our people, and none warmer than those clergy who believed that the ‘long-haired devils’ were devout Christians fighting the good fight against the Imperial heathen. Were Carpenter and his wife sufficiently demented for that? Presumably; if you’re religious you can believe anything. Well, then, if they wanted to supply Sharps carbines to the Taipings, why not ship ’em up the Yangtse to Nanking, where the Taipings were in force, instead of to Canton, where there wasn’t a Taiping within a hundred miles? Simple: Nanking was under siege, the Yangtse was a damned dangerous river, and they’d have had to run the stuff through Shanghai, where there’d have been a far greater risk of detection.

      But, dammit, how could they hope to smuggle guns into Canton, where our garrison and gunboats were thick as fleas, and the chests would have to be opened at the factories? That was plainly impossible – so they didn’t intend the lorchas ever to reach Canton. No, if their skipper turned eastward into the web of tributaries and creeks short of the First Bar, to some predetermined rendezvous … a Taiping mule-train waiting on a deserted river-bank … off-load and away up-country … why, it could be done as safe as sleep. And poor old Flashy; whom they’d needed to keep meddling and acquisitive Chinese officials at bay during the run past the forts, and who had performed that service to admiration – why, he’d be no trouble. Could he, Her Majesty’s loyal servant, go running to Parkes at Canton to confess that he’d been instrumental in providing the Taipings with enough small arms to keep ’em going until doomsday? Not half.

      And that little snake Ward must be up to the neck in it! Hadn’t he announced himself a Taiping-worshipper only yesterday? Wait, though – he’d also admitted that he would have hove to for the Imperial galley, which would have been fatal to him … By gum, had that been acting for my benefit? Yes, because later when I’d remarked that we might have to part with a chest or two as ‘squeeze’ to the Mandarins, he’d been taken suddenly aback, until he’d reflected that the lorchas would never get that close to Canton. The lying, dissimulating, Yankee snake …

      That, I say, is how I would have reasoned, given the leisure – and I’d have been dead right, too. As it was, no leisure was afforded me; some of it went through my mind in a flash – the bit about Ward, for instance – but I hadn’t had time to slam the chest cover down when I felt the lorcha swing violently off course, her mainsail cracked like a cannon, there was a yelling and scampering of bare feet overhead, and I had flung the wench aside, dived into the cabin, grabbed my Adams from beneath my pillow, and was up the companion like a jack rabbit.

      I emerged just in time to duck beneath the mainsail boom as it came swinging ponderously overhead with a couple of boatmen clinging on, yelling bloody murder as they tried to secure it. The others were at the rail, pigtails flapping and chattering like monkeys, staring forward. By God, the second lorcha was now ahead, and there was Ward at her helm; we were close in by the east bank – it must be the east, for there was the sun gleaming dully through the morning mist, the first rays turning the waters to gold around us. But we were running south! My lorcha was just completing her turn; I spun round in bewilderment. Two of the boatmen had the tiller jammed over as far as it would go – and a furlong behind us, its oars going like the Cambridge crew as it raced down towards us, was a dandy little launch rowed by fellows in white shirts and straw hats, with a little chap in the sternsheets egging them on. And half a mile beyond that, emerging from a creek on the east bank, was an undoubted Navy sloop. She was flying the Union Jack.

      There are times, as I said, to run, and times to think – and by God I couldn’t do either! I know now that Ward, a stranger to the Pearl, and with only a clown of a boatman as pilot, had missed his turning in the dark, and run slap into one of our Canton patrollers, but in that moment I was aware only that the blue-jackets were upon us, and poor old Flash was sitting on top of the damnedest load of contraband you ever saw. I acted on blind instinct, thank heaven; the launch was closing in, and there was only one thing for it.

      ‘Ward, you toad!’ I bellowed. ‘Take that!’ And springing on to the rail to get a clear shot at him, I let blaze with the Adams. He sprang away from the tiller of the other lorcha, and I loosed off another shot which struck splinters from his rail; his boat yawed crazily, and in the crisis he behaved with admirable presence of mind: he was over her rail like a porpoise, taking the water clean and striking out like billy-o for the bank, not a hundred yards off. I jumped down, roaring, and was about to send another ball after him when one of my helmsmen whipped out his kampilan and came at me, screaming like a banshee. I shot him point-blank, and the force of it flung him back against the rail, clutching his guts and pouring blood. Before his fellows could move I had my back to the rail, flourishing the Adams, and bawling to them to stand off or I’d blow ’em to blazes. For an instant they hesitated, hands on hilts, the ugly yellow faces contorted with rage and fear; I banged a shot over their heads, and the whole half-dozen scampered across beside their wounded mate. Behind me I heard a young voice, shrill with excitement, yelling ‘In oars! Follow me!’, the launch was bumping against our side, and here was a young snotty, waving a cutlass as big as himself, and half a dozen tars at his heels, jumping on to our deck.

      ‘Come along, you fellows!’ cries I heartily. ‘You’re just in time! Careful, now … these are desperate villains!’ And I gave a final flourish of the Adams at the boatmen, who were crouched, half naked and looking as piratical as sin, beside their leaking comrade, before turning to greet the gaping midshipman.

      ‘Flashman, colonel, army intelligence,’ says I briskly, and held out my hand. He took it in bewilderment, goggling at me and at the boatmen. ‘Just have your lads watch out for those rascals, will you? They’re gun-runners, you know.’