IV THE QUEST FOR OPIUM

During the first half of my service most Chinamen wore the pigtail denoting loyalty to the Manchu Dragon Throne of Peking. Europeans went almost everywhere by rickshaw - but do not imagine the rickshaw men were the depressed section of the Chinese community Their work was less onerous than that of the bulk of the Chinese masses whose manual toil down the years was made much more difficult through lack of machinery.

During my service in the International Settlement I held the offices of Registrar of the International Mixed Court, Governor of the Gaols. Assistant Commissioner Traffic and Anti-Narcotics, Deputy Commissioner Uniform Branch and finally, for a short period, Acting Commissioner. I left the Service in 1933.

It is necessary perhaps to explain the system under which the various nationalities lived side by side duriug these years. 'Foreign devils', as the Chinese called us behind our backs, were allowed to live on Chinese soil according to the laws of their own countries. Hence the need for Mixed Courts, which tried foreigners who were without consular representation. Under the terms of the treaty that established the Treaty Ports, any Chinese sentenced to death had to be handed over to the Chinese authorities.

The Police 'Black Maria' used to make the journey over the border at pretty frequent intervals, escorted by a senior English sergeant, who had to witness the executions and then bring back certain documents for filing.

On one occasion, those destined to meet their doom were being tied to the execution posts when, in good English, one shouted to the startled sergeant, "Back No... dog in the . Race tonight". On returning to the Police Station the escort Sergeant wotild not eat his tiffin, confining himself to stindry drams in quick succession. When questioned by his fellow sergeants, he told them what had occurred on the execution ground. "Let's make up a party and go dog-racing tonight" they said, "and back your deceased friend's up". He refused to accompany them. The others went but, alas, the up from the grave, as it were, did not come off - the dog came second, beaten by a short head, I believe.

Police were mystified more than once after arresting armed kidnappers who had already been sentenced to death in the Mixed Courts and passed on to the Chinese for execution. Foreign police always attended executions yet fingerprints checks confirmed that the criminals seized were actually ones supposed to be dead.

The mystery was solved when it was established that friends of influential gangsters bribed the Chinese police chief to release them. He then replaced the condemned men with any petty thief who happened to be in the cells on execution day. It was no use such unforttinates yelling; such behaviour before execution was understandable! The practice was stopped by having execution witnesses fingerprint condemned men just before they were due for shooting, strangulation or beheading. The Chinese were flexible in the form of execution.

When I was Governor of the Gaols, there were 1900 Chinese convicts in the Municipal Gaol. The British Gaol seldom held more than ten foreigners awaiting expatriation to their native lands.

The permanent member of the British Gaol staff was one with the rank of Senior Warden, on loan from the Municipal Gaol. Ak'ays, on my preparing to leave, following an inspection and hearing of complaints, he would remind me that I had not inspected the condemned cell and gallows drop. He would solemnly load sandbags of a weight of, say, 12 stone, on to the platform, "Ready sir!" and pull the lever. Some people have a peculiar sense of humour. I am glad to say that the drop was never called into use whilst I was in charge.

The Municipal gaol had a great reputation for the making of all kinds of coir mats and matting, especially for ship's decks and passage-ways, house furniture and bamboo chairs. Uniforms were also made for the Sikh and Chinese branches of the Police Force, the non-European members of the staff and, needless to say, all clothing for the prisoners.

The convicts made me several pairs of hand-painted silk racing boots (weighing only 4 ozs. a pair) and sets of silk racing colours, I finding the materials and paying for convict labour.

They built me a duck-punt and carved a dozen Mallard decoy ducks. I nearly drowned getting into rough tidal water, when out in the punt, and the wooden decoy ducks completely fooled Nordic gunners, crawling up in moonlight to what they thought were wild duck feeding on a flooded paddy field. The wooden decoys were in pretty poor shape after getting six barrels at fairly close range. I gave up duck flighting at that spot after finding a couple of my friends had anchored their houseboat at my pet spot, where they had, the previous night, shot a round dozen or so.

I brought up two badger cubs. They lived in perfect harmony in my garden, along with my small son's white rabbit, my dach shund 'Jelly' - incidentally one of the best gundogs I ever shot with over in China - and one of my bloodhounds.

One night, friends from Co. Meath were to throw a fairsized cocktail party on their lawn, divided from ours by a bamboo fence. Many plates of food, set out on lace d'oyleys, were scattered on tables around the circle. The badgers lost no time in digging a hole under the fence and went hammer and tongs for the food, while the servants were busy elsewhere. One badger got its foot entangled in a lace tablecloth - then things happened! Terrified, it dashed all over the place, upsetting glassware, tables, chairs, etc., including the table holding the bottles and ice-pails. Through the bamboo fence they both charged until, finally, I managed to corner the delinquent, and released it from the remnants of the lace tablecloth.

After this episode, I took them down to the gaol, where they lived in perfect freedom for quite a long time During the day they slept on the stairs leading up to the sentry boxes. When darkness fell, off they trotted into the country, returning round about dawn. Whenever the gaol staff had a tennis party on the hard courts in the centre of the exercise ground, they took care to have all refreshments on high tables. Both convicts and Indian staff took great interest in these badgers and were furious when, after one of their nightly rambles, they met an untimely end at the hands of a temporary guard on duty at the main gate. He saw what to him were wild, uncouth, grunting animals, pushing their way under the gate, and shot them.

In those faraway days, cultivated land came dose up to my house on the outer fringes of the residential area. Annually a big rainstorm broke on September i9th, 20th or 21st, bringing the very hot weather and particularly steamy nights to an end, to everyone 5 intense relief. Instead of going to the racecourse I would go out with my dachshund and usually come back with a couple or more of Pintail or Swinhoe snipe, borne on the storm from the breeding grounds of the Siberian Tundra, en route for the Siam and Malayan Archipelago.

On my first outing one year, my dachshund suddenly pointed, with his hackles up. I cautiously advanced, fearing a mad dog in the last stages of rabies. Behold, a large Chinaman, dressed in a rich black gown, fast asleep in the crops. On my awakening him with my toe, his story ran that he was a humble carpenter from Soochow City, looking for his lost brother. One look at his hands was enough, he was no carpenter. With my 20 bore in the small of his back, he made no effort to escape. A phone call to the nearest police station brought members of the detective staff, who were not impressed with his tale. Actually he had a record and admitted that he proposed burgling the nearby residence of the Brazilian Consul, who, it was said, lavished much jewellery on his lovely young wife.

At 10 a.m. I gave evidence, describing how I came to be on the spot at that early hour, and both the Chinese Magistrate (the product of an English University), and the British Consular Assessor, were greatly amused at my bag.

As Registrar of the Court I next dealt with the Court documents. Then at 2 p.m., as Governor for the Gaol, I received this poor carpenter/burglar, as he began his sentence of 9 months, and finally bagged a few snipe. working over much the same ground again.

On one occasion an Indian - I think a Sikh - and a Chinese woman were ushered into my office. I was called upon to marry them there and then. I had the greatest difficulty in explaining that I, as Registrar of the International Mixed Court, was not entitled to perform a marriage for anyone. and the Indian would have to go to the British Consul to get instructeds. How long would it Lake, he asked. On my telling him three weeks, the woman burst into tears - I wonder why.

On another occasion a Nordic consulate rang me up and asked me to go down to Woosung and read a Burial Service over a sailor who had died in the port hospital of smallpox. I declined, pointing out that I was not in Holy Orders, and suggested that they should approach the Pastor of a non-sectarian Chapel, whose flock embraced those of many nationalities and sects.

Returning from 9 months' leave at the end of 1920, I received, en route, a letter, at Penang, from the Acting Commissioner of Police, informing me that it had been decided that the volume of 'Traffic' now needed the attention of someone of cornmissioned rank. Recognising that I was somewhat restless, it had been decided to offer me the post, which would be coupled with that of Head of the Narcotic Squad. In consequence, I got in touch with the police at Singapore and Hongkong when my ship called there, and picked up a few very useful hints.

On arrival at Shanghai, I was given carte blanche in the choosing of my own staff for this strange conglomeration of duties. I was fortunate again for every one of my staff proved to be good fellows, readv to work almost round the clock, if necessarv, without any extra pay.

The hunting for opium, morphia, heroin and cocaine smugglers and dealers was great fun and was not confined to regular hours.

In my safe I always had a sheaf of warrants signed by the Chinese Senior Mixed Court Magistrate, but no addresses inserted, because he knew full well that his own clerical staff would prove easy meat for the rich and powerful opium ring.

I had notes of places ready to be raided, but my informers never knew when a raid was pending. In fact, most were carried out on the spur of the moment, the addresses being inserted at the very last moment.

When it was a daylight raid and my staff were engaged in Traffic Office clerical work, off we would dash in a couple of cars, my own No. 9 car leading. All along the route Chinese would take up the cry "Cher an'. Cher an.' No.9. No.0" and tear along to see the fun. Night operations or Out of office hours, I warned my squad for a certain hour and a centrally, for them, situated rendezvous, at a distance from the objective.

For Court proceedings, the seizure of documents, codes, etc., often proved far more important than the weight of the drugs seized. One incident in particular attracted international atten tion.

It happened on February 26th, 1924. China was in the grip of a civil war. My investigations for opium took me eventually into the office of a 'hong' (firm) at No.51 Canton Road. With me was my Chinese interpreter; the rest of the squad spread Out to search the rest of the building.

I showed my warrant and sat down to await results from upstairs. I could see that No. 1 of the firm was becoming more and more agitated. With great satisfaction I noted an evergrowing pool on the floor. I asked him again if he would hand over the kevs of several safes. He shook his head. Just then an Irishman, by name O'Sullivan, with a great whoop, shouted, "Here it is, sir, and a ... has been pretending to sleep on it". At this the No. 1 went into a dead faint.

I soon had the keys, and the safes open. In addition to a small quantity of the best Indian opium there were small phials of every kind of drug. The safes were packed with wads of docu ments in English, French and Chinese. Upstairs was half a stone of good quality opium in the bed. We did not give up searching until we had pulled apart every. stick of furniture. panelling, floorboards and false ceilings.

This case later became famous, with international repercussions. Among the stuff we were able to find was a large batch of documents in different languages, which needed a month to translate and get ready for presentation as evidence in court.

The day after the raid, the Court made a special visit to tlie premises, and the 'hong' staff were remanded to enable the documents to be sifted and. where necessary, translated and printed. I think that copies in the region of 150 were printed and subsequently distributed to the famous Russel Pasha and all Consulates representing countries even remotely connected with the opium and other drugs traffic. Taken together, these documents showed the ramifications of the illicit trade, and also, to the minutest detail, the growing to harvesting operations of raw opium and the manufacture of drugs derived therefrom.

I shall always regret that I parted with my copy. In size and number of pages, it ran into about that of Tattersall's December Sales Catalogue (in the days of Somerville Tattersall and Gerald Deane) and the format of ours and that of Tat's worldwide distributed annual were almost identical even to the pale grey paper cover, though printed and made up many thousands of miles from Knightsbridge.

Don't think we picked winners every time, far from it. If in generous mood William Hill or Ladbrokes would have been on the right side if they had laid 4 or 5 to one against each outing just before the off.

There is a lot of nonsense written and talked about the drug traffic. In my day the dealers and purveyors to the public were cowards, although cunning. It was the smugglers who could be dangerous. But luckily for us they had never had practice or been trained in the handling of revolvers and automatic pistols and they were bad shots.

The biggest haul, measured by weight, my squad ever made in one raid was 4lbs. short of a ton, but this was all Chinese (Szechuen) grown, cheapjack stuff and so adulterated that only boatmen, rickshaw coolies or other workmen of low grade, would smoke it to soothe their aching limbs after a hard day's work. The upper classes would only smoke Patna or Benares of the highest morphia content, or, at a pinch, Persian or Turkish.

On one occasion we played Ah Baba and the forty thieves in reverse. We got word of a proposed transfer of narcotics through our territory, up the lower reaches of the tidal Soochow Creek, by Chinese junk, on the night flood. From a distance I surveyed the scene of the proposed landing and noted a number of large tar barrels on the Gas Company's wharf. Darkness had fallen and there was a flood tide, when we hopped into the barrels, empty of tar but with rainwater at the bottom. Unfortunately these few inches of rainwater had bred a host of mosquitos. Buoyed up by the hope of a really worthwhile haul, it seemed bearable until my informer crept up and said that the river smugglers had landed their cargo elsewhere. Our heads, hands. faces and ankles in particular were very much like raspberry puffs from mosquito bites and the tar clinging to the sides of the barrels was not all dry, by any means.

Another time we raided a better class Chinese residence. I warned my squad to be very careful not to damage any of the furniture and to concentrate on two living rooms, where the informer had insisted that the stuff was stored. We left without an ounce of opium. The informer duly met us. He told us it was all in a big oil stove in the centre of one of the rooms we searched. Waiting a few days, we re-visited the house. I had instructed my men to pretend to be very busy with the flooring in one corner of, shall we say, the south room. After a short spell, I would back into the stove and send it flying, flower pot and all. In the fall the stove door flew open and out fell quite a number of 1/2 ounce packets, sufficient evidence to warrant the flooring, etc., coming up. This yielded a good quantity.

One foggy evening, I took with me a young newly-arrived cadet officer. Naturally he was overjoyed at taking part. I had

The Ah Baba
game just
did not work

been warned that the roof-ridge was used as a cat-walk for transferring opium from the weighing and packaging room in one house, to the sales department, two houses down the alleyway, bare footed children being used as carriers. As we rushed into the two houses, up went light ladders at either end of the row of houses. A child, not seeing that the ridge was held, dashed along into the arms of this cadet, who lost his balance and began to slide down the roof, with the prospect of being killed or maimed on hitting the concrete-paved alleyway. It so happened that a careless workman had left a metal peg only half driven home. This hooked into the cadet's nether garments and held, thank heaven, until the Fire Brigade came to help out.

Another time an adult Chinese used a roof-ridge as an escape route after the Specials had been mobilised and had stood by without incident for several days. Their chief asked the Commissioner if they could be given work to break the monotony as they were tired of patrolling the streets. The Commissioner rang me and suggested that they should he used in some way on opium raids. I agreed with some misgivings. I briefed them and stressed that we were dealing with a lot of cur dogs, not armed smugglers and that under no circumstances were they to draw their automatic pistols. We had a few raids, on which the Specials guarded exits from alleyways, etc. Then came a raid on premises which were a veritable rabbit-warren, so some specials were allowed to enter and guard interior passages and doonvays.

As usual I was in the suspect's office, waiting for news of opium being found, before dealing with the safes, for which keys were not available. Suddenly from upstairs came a deafening crash of breaking glass and pistol shots. Up, straddling the supporting beam, were a couple of legs, from which blood was pouring down and with it, clear evidence that yet one more Chinaman would have qualified for inclusion in the Eunuch Staff within the Forbidden city of Peking.

This incident occurred long after the death of the despicable Empress Dowager. It is alleged that she liked countrymen hale and hearty decoyed into the palace by her pimps. They told their victims fabulous tales of what they would enjoy, far surpassing those recorded in 1001 Arabian Nights. Next morning they were given a hearty meal, laced with something that caused them a speedy transfer to a coffin and a special burial ground . .

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