Gweilo (25 page)

A decision was made. Like Stephen in the Bible, we would stone it to death.

Gathering as many large stones as we could find, we commenced hurling them at the snake. Some found their mark, most did not. All the while, the snake raised its head, the hood spread to show the black-and-white ghost-like pattern of a face on its surface.

We had been at this endeavour for five minutes or so when two coolies carrying poles over their shoulders came trotting down the hill. They looked over the edge of the
nullah
. The cobra seemed slightly wounded. One coolie dangled a coil of rope in front of the cobra's head. It struck at it then pressed its head to the
nullah
floor. The other coolie, signalling us to stand back, reached down into the
nullah
, grabbed the cobra by its tail, swung it up in the air and slammed it down on the concrete pathway. It was dead. They coiled it up, tied it with twine, hung it from one of their poles and set off down the hill. I walked home, ashamed that I had taken part in this assassination and vowing never to kill a snake again. Except in self defence.

My only other dangerous and somewhat farcical encounter occurred one evening on the Old Peak Road, a very steep footpath that wound down the mountain to the city below. Until the Second World War, it had been used extensively by sedan chairs and coolies but had fallen into disuse, the undergrowth on either side encroaching upon it, sometimes covering it completely. My reason for going down it was that someone had told me a Tokay gecko lived in the vicinity of the junction with Barker Road and was best seen at sunset when it appeared to go hunting.

The world's biggest gecko, at seven inches in length when fully grown, the Tokay gecko was spectacular, a light brown with red, white and black spots. Its call, a distinctive
tock-aye
, gave it its name. It was also very rare, mainly because it was a highly prized local entree.

I had descended as far as Barker Road when I heard a noise behind me that sounded like someone rattling several half-empty boxes of matches. Turning, I found a fully grown porcupine coming at me in reverse, all its quills upright and a-quiver. I stood my ground, not thinking it would press home its advance. Yet it did, accelerating in my direction. I clapped my hands and shouted – to no avail. I fled. The porcupine, although not overhauling me, at least kept pace. The angle of ascent soon told on me. I slowed. The porcupine continued its attack. Moving backwards up a 1 in 3 slope seemed not to bother it. I found a new lease of fear and reached the level ground by the observation point. The porcupine stopped at the roadside and faced me. Now that I could see it clearly, it was huge, three feet long and bulky. Its nose was blunt, like a beaver's, its quills black and white. It shivered. The quills rattled. Then it was off, running clumsily down Harlech Road and into the twilight. It was only later that a Chinese friend of my mother's told me that porcupines could kill a leopard cat with their quills.

I was not only grateful to have avoided a leopard cat's fate but also glad no-one had witnessed the confrontation. The loss of face would have been mortifying.

There were only two ways to reach the top of the Peak, discounting walking up the Old Peak Road which would test the stamina of a marine. One was by car or bus, the other by the Peak Tram.

Built in 1888, this was the world's steepest funicular railway and it operated on the simplest of systems. A long and well-greased steel cable was wrapped around a massive drum in the engine house at the top. On each end was a tram car. As one travelled down the mountain, so the other rose up it. At the halfway point, the track divided in two so that the cars might pass each other. The only snag was that there were more stations in the lower half of the route than the upper. Consequently, when the lower car stopped at one of the stations, the upper car would halt in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sub-tropical forest and birdsong.

The tram car was of unique design. Constructed of varnished wood on a steel frame and chassis, the uphill portion was an enclosed cabin. This was where Europeans or wealthy Chinese travelled. Other Chinese passengers, with the exception of baby amahs and their charges, were obliged to ride in the rear half which, although it was roofed, was otherwise open to the elements.

Whenever I could, I chose the rear portion. One just climbed on and sat down. There were no side walls, no restraining ropes, no safety bars. The only thing to hold on to was an armrest. Just before leaving the lower terminus on Garden Road, a tinny bell rang three times, there was a pause and the car edged forwards, running alongside a
nullah
and the Helena May Institute where, my mother frequently and convincingly but inaccurately remarked, Margot Fonteyn had taken her first ballet lesson. The single track then started to climb more steeply. To request it to stop, one pressed a labelled button; for boarding, one just put one's hand out to hail the brakeman.

All the while, the gradient increased. Above Bowen Road the angle of ascent was at least forty-five degrees. The May Road station, just below the halfway passing place, was at the steepest point. Here, when the car stopped, it yo-yo-ed alarmingly as the long steel cable flexed. Of necessity, it was elastic. This bouncing always set tourists chattering or American sailors chortling with alcohol-fuelled hilarity. Boarding or dismounting was difficult and one had to wait until the car stopped moving. Uphill from the May Road platform was a small signal box in which a man changed the points at the passing place. From here the tram car trundled steadily upwards, entering a cutting and turning a long bend in the middle of what was essentially sub-tropical jungle. This is where it would sometimes stop to accommodate the other car in a lower station. Huge butterflies would flit through the open rear, birds dance and jump in the tree branches. I once saw a small python sliding through the undergrowth, much to the frustration of my fellow amah and coolie passengers who could not disembark and catch it for the pot.

I grew blasé about the Peak Tram, for I took it as commonly as most people might a bus. The view, the harbour a backdrop at the top of the windows, the slopes of the Peak and the buildings apparently leaning backwards at a bizarre angle, were everyday phenomena.

The comments made by the tourists and American sailors were as predictable as sunrise: 'Hey, you guys! You bin on the rides at Coney Island?' At a mid-jungle halt: 'OK! Y'all out 'n' push!' At the elastic stage: 'How many times you reckon this baby's snapped?' To the brakeman leaning on a dead man's handle, who spoke not a word of even pidgin English: 'Ya hold that baby real tight now, y'hear?' On any number of occasions, I was asked if I was the British Ambassador's son, to which I replied haughtily that Britain did not need a Hong Kong embassy because we owned the place.

The Peak Tram being one of Hong Kong's tourist attractions, it was also frequented by celebrities. I rode it with The Ink Spots, a famous black American jazz quartet; the film star Danny Kaye and the English actor Jon Pertwee who later became
Dr Who
. They never really impressed me: they were just people whose autographs my mother insisted I request. One day in 1954, however, was different. My mother met me after school at the Peak Tram terminus to take me down to the city. I forget why. As we waited for the next tram, a notice declared that Barker Road station was temporarily closed. When the car arrived, we boarded it, sitting in the open coolie section at my request, which was at the front of the car on its descent. My mother did not complain. It was a hot afternoon.

The tram set off. Barker Road station approached. It was thronged with people. A bright light switched on as we drew near. The car stopped in the station. Someone appeared briefly with a clapper board. Another called, 'Action!' A man in a light-coloured suit detached himself from the crowd, walked down the platform and entered the cabin. The tram set off. The powerful light switched off. My mother put her hand on mine. It was quivering.

'That's Clark Gable!' she whispered.

And it was. He was shooting a film called
Soldier of Fortune
.

She scrabbled in my school bag, took out an exercise book, tore a page from it, fumbled in her handbag for a pen, then said the obvious.

'Martin, get his autograph.'

'You get his autograph.'

'I can't,' she fumed. 'I'm a grown up. You get it.'

'You tore a page out of my exercise book,' I complained. 'I'll get into trouble for that.'

'I'll square it with your teacher. Now get his autograph.'

'I don't want it.'

'He's one of the biggest film stars in the world.'

I remained unmoved. She grabbed my arm.

'Get his bloody autograph,' she threatened
sotto voce
, her lips tight. 'If you don't. . .'

'What if I do?' I parried. It seemed I might as well take advantage of the situation.

The Peak Tram reached May Road station and bounced on its cable for a minute. Clark Gable stood up, disembarked and walked off into a crowd of film people. The tram carried on down the mountain.

'Just for that,' my mother said peevishly, 'we're not going to Tkachenko's.' A thought then occurred to her. 'Maybe we'll be in the background as he got on.'

When it was released, we went to the cinema several times to see the film. We did not feature in it.

Apart from the vehicular ferry, and the walla-walla boats which were expensive, the only way to reach Hong Kong island from the mainland of Kowloon was by the Star Ferry, universally known as 'the ferry', which plied, every fifteen minutes for eighteen hours a day, across the mile-wide harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central District, as the heart of Hong Kong's business world was called. As on the Peak Tram, the passengers were segregated, the wealthy and well-to-do – Chinese and European – travelling on the enclosed top deck, the rabble of coolies, amahs and others on the bottom – open to the elements – with their poles, boxes, bales and large, circular baskets of complaining chickens. To cross the harbour on the upper deck cost ten cents one way: the lower cost five.

I looked forward to taking the ferry. The craft would have to weave between warships at anchor, with Chinese women in rocking sampans painting the hulls or collecting the garbage. Cargo ships under a harbour pilot's control slid by like mobile cliffs of black metal, eager faces at open portholes. The ferry had to give way to sail and oar so it was common for it to slow to a crawl or change course mid-harbour to allow passage to an ocean-going junk in full sail heading for the open sea. On one occasion, the ferry on which I was riding had to stop for a massive junk flying the Communist Chinese flag and armed with two small cannon mounted on her stern. It really was a case of the eighteenth meeting the twentieth century.

Whilst the ferries themselves were perfectly safe, I had my doubts about the ferry piers. Constructed of a wooden deck on wooden piles, they creaked and swayed dizzily as a vessel came alongside. The piles screeched, the deck planking moaned like lost souls and everyone waiting to board swayed unsteadily. What was more toe-curling was the fact that there were gaps between the planks. Twice, I accidentally dropped my pocket money down them, only to see the coins hit the water below and sink without trace. Not that I would have accepted them back, for the harbour was notoriously dirty – the Kowloon sewers emptied into it – and, one day, pushing through a crowd of Chinese peering down through the cracks between the planks, I saw a dead coolie floating under the pier. He was face down, bare to the waist, his arms rising and falling with the rhythm of the wavelets. In the centre of his back, halfway down his spine, was a hole, washed clean of blood by the sea. I could see his vertebrae. Schools of small fish hovered around him. A small crab rode on his shoulder. According to the Radio Hong Kong news that evening, he had been murdered with a baling hook.

My mother and I frequently rode the bottom deck.

'Let's rough it,' she would say, approaching the coolie turnstile. 'See how the other half live.'

We boarded the ferry, the gangplank moving to and fro as the vessel rocked on the waves. There were few seats on the lower deck and, invariably, these were occupied by amahs who ran for them the minute they stepped on the deck. A running amah, dressed in her white jacket and black trousers, looked for all the world like an intoxicated penguin.