Chapter 3: Settlement of Accounts
In terms of urban construction alone, Cape Town in the 19th century may not be as good as some towns in the remote mountainous areas of the Republic in the 21st century. The buildings on both sides of the street are dilapidated and dirty, and the shops have almost no signs. Looking along the whole street, there are almost no buildings higher than three stories. This is the relatively prosperous Adderley Street in Cape Town .
As the capital of the Cape Colony, Cape Town should be quite prosperous. In fact, when Rock walked out of the hospital gate, it was only ten o'clock in the morning, but there were almost no businesses open on both sides of the street. There were very few pedestrians on the street, and most of them were ragged. Rock even saw some white people without shoes, just walking barefoot in the mud mixed with horse manure.
Looking at the high leather boots issued by the police station on his feet, Rock finally had a preliminary impression of the 19th century. This world was not very friendly to Rock, but it was not bad either.
The police station where Rock works is not far from Jonathan Jackson and turn left at two blocks, and you can see the big vermilion iron gate of the police station from afar. This is Government Street in the center of Cape Town. Most of the city government agencies are on this street. Next to the police station is the oldest church in Cape Town, and opposite is the Government Street Public Park. The street environment is pretty good. There are fuel-powered street lamps on the side of the road, and someone will light them up every night. The entire street is paved with blue stone slabs. Maybe it has been raining in the past two days, and the bluestone slabs are wet, looking like a landscape painting in light ink. This finally makes Rock look forward to his future life.
Rock didn't want to work in an environment full of sewage and mud all day.
Although Rock's rank in the Chinese Battalion is corporal, when he arrived in Cape, he had to start from scratch, so now he is just an ordinary police officer.
The recruitment of ordinary police officers would certainly not alarm the police chief. In fact, Rock only needed to report to his direct inspector to re-enter the job. The inspector in charge of Rock was Austin Burns, also a white British man who had served in the colonial forces. It was said that he was a relative of the police chief August Russell.
Austin Pence has been in trouble recently. He is responsible for the security of the port area, which is originally a lucrative place, but at the same time the security situation is the most complicated.
The defeat of British troops on the front line has led to a sharp deterioration in the security situation in Cape Town. In the past week, there have been many attacks on patrol police in Cape Town. Austin Pence's men have suffered heavy losses. Six patrol police officers in the entire Cape Town Police Department were killed, four of whom were Austin Pence's men.
In order to enhance the patrol officers' ability to fight back when they are attacked, Police Chief August Russell decided to equip all patrol officers with weapons. However, this brought up another problem, because before this, most police officers had no experience in using weapons, so patrol officers also needed to receive training in the use of relevant weapons. Otherwise, patrol officers patrolling the streets with guns would be equivalent to supplying , which would cause even greater chaos.
"Sir, Luo, who was attacked and hospitalized some time ago, is back and he requests to return to the team." Austin Pence's assistant Bill Bohm reported.
"Okay, you handle it." Austin Pence was not in the mood to deal with these things, not even in the mood to meet Rock.
"Yes, sir." Beerbohm had an expression on his face as if he had known this would happen.
"Wait, Rock? He seems to have served in the Chinese Battalion?" Austin Pence suddenly remembered Rock's resume.
"Yes, sir. Rock once served in the Chinese Battalion with the rank of corporal, which is also the highest rank a Chinese can get in the Chinese Battalion." Beerbohm is very familiar with Rock's resume. In this regard, he is more qualified than Austin Pence.
"Bring him to see me." Thinking of the batch of Webley revolvers in the warehouse that would soon be equipped to patrol police, Austin Pence suddenly became interested in Rock.
Soon, Rock was standing in front of Austin Pence.
It has to be said that Rock was impeccable in terms of his appearance. After all, his height of 1.8 meters is outstanding even among white people. Rock was not like most Chinese and Indian police officers who were timid in front of their superiors and dared not to show themselves. At least when standing at attention, Rock dared to look Austin Pence in the eye, which made Austin Pence feel Rock's confidence, but he did not feel provoked. Rock grasped this measure very well.
"Relax, Corporal. You have served in the Chinese Brave Battalion. I want to know what you can do and whether you have any experience with a revolver." Although Austin Pence had a little appreciation for Rock, Rock was far from being good enough to make Austin Pence look at him differently, so Austin Pence went straight to the point.
This question is too broad and difficult to answer, and Austin Pence seems to have overlooked the fact that there are more than 30 Chinese police officers in the Cape Town Police Department. They all come from the Chinese Brave Battalion, but their English is not very good. Although they have all received simple English training, their English level is not high enough. Under normal circumstances, a Chinese police officer probably cannot use English to fully answer Austin Pence's question.
Of course, this was no problem for Rock: "Sir, I received complete infantry training in the Chinese Brave Battalion, and my shooting performance was excellent, but I did not receive any pistol training. We were all equipped with Martini Henry rifles."
Rock spoke the truth and did not exaggerate his experience. Austin Pence once served in the colonial forces, and the equipment situation of the colonial forces was no secret to Austin Pence.
"Okay, get back to work, Corporal." Austin Pence immediately lost interest when he didn't get what he wanted.
Rock didn't care. This was the attitude of bosses towards their subordinates these days. Don't expect much humanistic care from your superiors. What's more, Rock was Chinese, and his status in the police station was not even as good as that of Indians. At least most Indians were fluent in English and could flatter their superiors very smoothly.
After returning to the patrol lounge, Rock did not remember to find the sheriff to assign work, but went to find his former partner Kunal first. Rock still had a score to settle with him.
As the name suggests, Kunal is an Indian. A week ago, Rock and Kunal were patrolling the streets together. When they were attacked, Kunal ran away first, leaving Rock facing six or seven opponents alone. As a result, Rock was beaten up.
It stands to reason that with Rock's skills, he might have been able to fight back, but the Rock before was not the Rock now. He did not dare to kill the white man, and as a result, Rock almost lost his life.
Now that Rock has recovered, we can deal with those attackers later, but we must settle the score with Kunal first.
