‘A lovely little boat. Saw us safely all the way down the Irrawaddy to Rangoon.’
Many years ago, Lady Hardcastle had tempted me away from my job as a parlour maid in London with the offer of the chance to work as her lady’s maid. A few years later, when I had accompanied her and her husband to China, I had learned that she was employed by Her Britannic Majesty’s Government to use her social position and her husband’s connections (he was quite the rising young star in the Foreign Office) to gather intelligence on our country’s friends and foes. She was a spy. When her husband, Sir Roderick, had been killed by a German assassin, she and I had escaped Shanghai together and had made our way inland, fleeing the Chinese rebels and who knows how many foreign agents, in an attempt to get home the long way round.
After many weeks of travel, dressed in Chinese garb, buying, and sometimes stealing, food along the way, and sleeping in fields, we were somewhere in the north of Hunan Province where we had chanced upon a Shaolin monk. I don’t think it’s a melodramatic exaggeration to say that he saved our lives. We never questioned him closely on the reasons why, but he had been sent out from the monastery into the world and was wandering from village to village, getting work where he could. I like to imagine that in our own, desperate way, we helped to save him, too, by giving him a mission and a purpose. He was surprised to find first that despite our dress we were Westerners, and then even more surprised to discover that we spoke passable Mandarin. He agreed to be our guide and to take us all the way west and into Burma so that eventually we could find a ship to take us to Calcutta and a way of getting home.
Our journey was an eventful one with many adventures along the way which I have once before promised to recount, and I once again promise that one day, I shall. To be truthful, it was the first of the adventures that really changed things for me. We had been travelling steadily westward with our new guide for less than a week and, emboldened by his protective presence, we had begun travelling upon the roads rather than skulking across fields. Shortly after dawn one day, we had breakfasted and broken camp and were just setting off towards the next village which Chen Ping Bo was sure would welcome us, when we were set upon by three bandits. One of them had leapt out at us from behind a tree, brandishing a hefty stick, and when we turned to get away from him, his two comrades emerged from the ditch beside the road, each armed with their own rather nasty-looking sticks and barring our retreat. Chen sighed and put down his pack.
Calmly and politely, he said a few words to the first man in a dialect I did not recognize. The bandits laughed and jeered. Chen said a few more words and got the same reaction. Then in Mandarin, he quietly said, ‘Ladies, would you be so kind as to step to the side of the road.’
We had no better plan, so we did as he asked, keeping all three bandits in sight, but keeping well out of the way. Chen bowed to the first bandit, who laughed again and said a few words in an unmistakably mocking tone. Chen merely stood there, relaxed and smiling. The first bandit advanced on him, leering, and swinging his stick menacingly, but still Chen did not move. The bandit aimed a blow near Chen’s head, and seemed slightly disconcerted when Chen didn’t flinch. Becoming increasingly angry, the bandit swung again, this time clearly intending to make contact, and I feared that our newfound companion would be killed.
The next thing I was properly aware of was the bandit lying on his back on the ground clutching his throat and gasping for breath, and Chen – now armed with the stick – turning to face the other two men. There was a moment’s pause before they dropped their own sticks and fled down the road in the direction we had just come. Chen helped their friend to his feet and bowed to him once more before he, too, fled to join his fellows. Slowly and deliberately, Chen picked up his pack and indicated that we should resume our journey.
‘What did I just see, Chen Ping Bo?’ I asked once we were moving again.
‘What do you think you saw?’ he asked.
‘He made to strike you with his stick, you took a step towards him, there was a flurry of hands, feet and elbows, too fast for me to make out, and then he was lying on the ground, choking.’
‘Then that must have been what happened,’ he said.
In the few days we had known him, we had learned that Chen was the sort of fellow who really rather enjoyed not giving direct answers to direct questions.
‘Is it something I could learn to do?’ I said.
‘You strike me as a very capable young woman,’ he said. ‘I am sure that with a lifetime’s study, prayer and meditation, you could become very skilled. Alas the rules of my order are very strict and women are not permitted.’
‘But could you teach me to defend myself?’ I persisted. ‘These are dangerous times and we shan’t always be able to rely on you for protection.’
He regarded me solemnly for a few moments. ‘It is against all the rules of my order,’ he said, slowly. ‘But you make a good case. I shall teach you. And your mistress, too?’
‘Me?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I say, that would be rather fun, but I fear I’m not cut out for the rough and tumble. And I wouldn’t want to damage my hands.’ She held up her elegant hands. ‘I might never play the piano again.’
I knew for a fact that she was no stranger to rough and tumble, and that she was skilled with a knife and an expert markswoman with pistol and rifle, but I confess I was rather pleased that I should be the only one to learn Chen’s mysterious arts so I said nothing.
And so it was that as the months passed and our journey took us farther and farther west towards Burma, Chen Ping Bo trained me in the basics of his own particular brand of hand-to-hand combat. As I learned not only the physical skills, but also a little of the philosophy that shaped them, I realized that he had been right: it would take a lifetime of diligent study to master them. Nevertheless, by the time we had slipped across the Burmese border and had eventually arrived at Mandalay, I was deemed more than capable of protecting myself and Lady Hardcastle and Chen even went so far as to suggest that if ever a monastic order were to admit women, I should apply at once to be their first student.
Mandalay was bustling and we wondered for a time about contacting the British authorities, but we still had no idea whom we could trust and deemed it prudent instead to stick to our original plan and head down the Irrawaddy to the coast and from there by ship to Calcutta. Lady Hardcastle had trustworthy contacts in Bengal and we knew that once we were there, we would be safe.