The Devil Soldier by Caleb Carr Read Free Book Online

beholden to the British for penal space, a fact that the American minister found “humiliating.” The consul, William L. G. Smith, wrote that if the British proved unable to provide such space, his next move was generally to inquire “whether the party was able to pay a fine; if, as is almost always the case, he has no means for doing this, I refuse to entertain the complaint. I have no alternative.” In addition, Smith was a native of Buffalo, New York, who found Shanghai’s climate not at all to his liking. By 1860 he was complaining that the combination of hard work and large amounts of quinine (used to keep malaria at bay) were making it imperative that he return home. In his agitation over his health, he was even less disposed to grapple with annoying questions of law enforcement.
    Consul Smith came into contact with merchants, smugglers, sailors, drunkards, and fortune hunters every day. It is therefore understandable that when he crossed paths with a sometime sailing officer from Salem,Massachusetts, called Frederick Townsend Ward early in 1860 he saw no reason to mention it in his consular dispatches. Ward, twenty-eight years old at the time, was a handsome man, just five foot seven but, according toAugustus A. Hayes (a fellow New Englander and junior partner in one of Shanghai’s largest commercial houses), “well made and athletic.” Ward sported “a black mustache, and his black hair was worn long on his shoulders. His manners were excellent, and his voice pleasant.” The feature that provoked the most comment among those who met Ward, however, were his eyes. They were variously reported as being black, deep hazel, and dark blue, in all probability because their actual color was less important than their quality of gleaming restlessness. Something of a social chameleon, Ward was capable by turns of carrying on polite conversation with diplomatic envoys and holding his own in any of Shanghai’s saloons. But to a man in Consul Smith’s position he could not have looked like very much more than another penniless American sailor scouring Shanghai for lucrative excitement. And since Ward’s search had taken him down a legal path—he had secured work as first mate on a succession of riverboats—there was even less reason to remark on his presence in the city.
    But if Consul Smith had not seen fit to notice his young countryman’s exceptional qualities, others had. A reputation for bravery and coolheaded daring soon netted Ward the post of first officer on an armed river steamer, the Confucius , which patrolled the waterways around Shanghai in search of pirates. “Pirates,” in the Shanghai of 1860, could often mean Taiping rebels (and vice versa), and Ward had soon experienced scattered run-ins with the followers of the T’ien Wang. The well-armed Confucius was captained by one of Ward’s fellow Americans, who called himself Gough and styled himself “Admiral.” Gough’s employer was Shanghai’s Pirate Suppression Bureau, yet another organization conceived and operated by Wu Hsü and Yang Fang. Early in 1860 Gough was given the additional task of organizing a small group of waterfront habitués to scout the countryside around Shanghai and give warning of any rebel approach. The admiral demonstrated his trust in Ward by putting him in charge of the project. Ward’s contacts with the rebels became more regular.
    The United States, like Great Britain and France, had officially adopted a neutral stance toward China’s internal difficulties. The activities of men like Admiral Gough and his young protégé Ward—though officially explained as police actions—came dangerously close to crossing the line of partisan military activity. Already during the Taiping rebellion, one American by the memorable name of Sandwich Drinker had accepted an advance of $20,000 from the gentry of Canton to organize a similar “antipirate” force and had seen his plans aborted by the American consul in that city.