Drawing abreast of the Danish Factory’s cattle pen, Neel waited to see what would happen. A minute later a column of troops burst out of the mouth of Old China Street. Their rhythmically stamping feet sent a cloud of dust spiralling into the air as they trotted towards the tall pole that bore the American flag.

As it happened the flag was hoisted not in front of the American but the Swedish Factory for it was in that compound that the residence of the American Consul was located. Between the Danish Hong, which was at the far end of the enclave, and the Swedish, which was in the middle, lay six other factories: the Spanish, the French, the Mingqua, the American, the Paoushun and the Imperial Hong. It took only a few minutes for the sound of drums, gongs and firecrackers to penetrate to the interior of those factories. Then all at once, traders, agents, shroffs and merchants came pouring out.

It was ten in the morning, the busiest time of day in Fanqui-town. The early ferry-boats from Whampoa had arrived a couple of hours before, bringing in the usual contingent of sailors on shore leave. On reaching the enclave the lascars and lime-juicers had gone, as was their custom, straight to the shamshoo-shacks of Hog Lane, so as to get scammered as quickly as possible. Now, as word of the troop’s arrival spread, they came running out to see what was under way. Neel could tell that many of them had taken on full loads of the stagger-juice; some were reeling and some were leaning heavily on the shoulders of their shipmates.

With the crowd swelling fast it took Neel a good few minutes to push his way through to the American flagpole, where a space had been cleared and a tent erected: a mandarin, ceremonially robed, was seated inside, with assistants hovering at his elbow. A few yards away, right under the flag, a squad of soldiers was nailing together a strange wooden apparatus.

Now again there was an outburst of gongs and conches and the crowd parted to admit another column of troops. They were carrying a chair that was attached to two long shoulder-poles. Tethered to this device was a man in an open tunic, bareheaded, with his hands tied behind his back. He was thrashing about, flinging his head from one side to another.

As the crowd churned around him, Neel picked up snatches of an exchange in an eastern dialect of Bengali.

Haramzadatake gola-tipa mairra dibo naki? … Are they going to throttle the bastard?

Ta noyto ki? Dekchis ni, bokachodata kemni kaippa uthtase … What else? Look how the fucker’s shivering …

It turned out that Neel was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with two lascars from Khulna, a tindal and a classy. The tindal had a bottle in his hand: delighted to have come across a fellow Bengali, he put his arm around Neel’s neck and held the bottle to his lips. Here, have a little sip, won’t do you any harm …