Tai-Pan (25 page)

And Culum. What’s he been up to? Why hasn’t he written? Aye, and Robb, too. And what mischief’s Longstaff done?

The chimes sounded eleven o’clock. Struan awakened May-may. She yawned and stretched luxuriously, like a cat. Ah Gip had been up the instant Struan had moved, and she was already collecting the bundles.

“The lorcha is come?” May-may asked.

“Nay. But we can move downstairs and be ready.”

May-may whispered to Ah Gip, who unpinned May-may’s hair and brushed it vigorously. May-may closed her eyes and enjoyed it. Then Ah Gip braided the hair as a Hoklo would, and bound it with a piece of red ribbon and let it fall down her back.

May-may rubbed her hands in the dust and dirtied her face. “Wat I do for you, Tai-Pan. This filth dirt will destroy the perfection of beauty skin. I will need much bullion to repair. How much, heya?”

“Get along with you!”

He led the way carefully downstairs into the dining room and, motioning them to sit patiently, went to the window. The square was still deserted. There were oil lights in the massed sampans of the floating villages. Dogs barked from time to time and firecrackers sounded and quarreling voices were raised and hushed, and sometimes there were happy voices—and the ever-present 
clack-clack
 of mahjongg tiles being banged onto a deck or a table and the chattering singsong. Smoke rose from cooking fires. Junks and lorchas and sampans filled the estuary. Everything—the sounds and the smells and sights—seemed normal to Struan. Except the emptiness of the square—he had presumed that the square would be populated. Now they had to cross a deserted expanse, and in the moonlight they could be seen for hundreds of yards.

The clock chimed midnight.

He waited and watched and waited.

The minutes became longer and after an eternity the chimes sounded the quarter-hour. Then the half-hour.

“Maybe the lorcha is south,” May-may said, stifling a yawn.

“Aye. We’ll wait another half an hour, then we’ll look.”

Almost at the hour he saw the two lanterns on a lorcha coming downstream. The boat was too far away for him to see the red-painted eye and he held his breath and waited. The lorcha was sailing gently but was sluggish and slow in the water. This was a favorable sign to him because the bullion would weigh many tons. After the boat passed the north end of the Settlement, it changed course and crept into the wharf. Two of the Chinese crew jumped ashore with hawsers and tied up. To his relief, another Chinese went to the lantern on the prow, blew it out and lit it again according to the prearranged signal.

Struan searched the half-darkness for peril. He sensed none. He checked the priming of his pistols and stuck them in his belt. “Follow me, quickly now!”

Silently he went to the front door and unlocked it and guided them cautiously through the garden. He opened the gate and they hastened across the square. Struan felt as though all Canton was watching them. Reaching the lorcha, he saw the red-painted eye and recognized on the poop the man who had led him to Jin-qua. He helped May-may aboard. Ah Gip leaped aboard easily.

“Wat for two cow chillo, heya? No can!” the man said.

“Your name wat can?” Struan asked.

“Wung, heya!”

“Cow chillo my. Cast off, Wung!”

Wung noticed May-may’s tiny feet and his eyes narrowed. He could not see May-may’s face, for she kept the sampan hat low over her forehead. Struan did not like the way Wung hesitated or the way he looked at May-may. “Cast off!” he said curtly, and bunched a fist. Wung rapped an order. The hawsers were cast off and the lorcha slipped away from the wharf. Struan took May-may and Ah Gip down the gangway to the lower deck. He turned aft where the main cabin would be and opened the door. Inside were five Chinese. He motioned them out. Reluctantly they got up and left, looking May-may up and down. They, too, noticed her feet.

The cabin was tiny with four bunks and a crude table and benches. It smelled of hemp and rotting fish. Wung was standing at the door of the cabin, scrutinizing May-may.

“Wat for cow chillo? No can.”

Struan paid no attention to him. “May-may—you locka dorra, heya? Only open dorra my knock, savvy?”

“Savvy, Mass’er.”

Struan went to the door and beckoned Wung outside. He heard the bolt lock behind them, then he said, “Go hold!”

Wung took him into the hold. The forty crates were stacked in two neat rows against the sides of the ship, with a wide passageway between them.

“Wat in box, heya?” Struan asked.

Wung seemed perplexed. “Wat for you saya, heya? All same Mass’er Jin-qua say.”

“How muchee men knowa?”

“My only! All knowa, ayee, yah!” Wung said, drawing his finger across his throat.

Struan grunted. “Guard dorra.” He selected a crate at random and opened it with a crowbar. He stared down at the bullion, then lifted one of the silver bricks from the top layer. He sensed Wung’s tension and it heightened his own. He replaced the brick and the top of the crate.

“Wat for cow chillo, heya?” Wung said.

“Cow chillo my. Finish.” Struan made sure the lid was tight again.

Wung stuck his thumbs in the belt of his ragged pants. “Chow? Can?”

“Can.”

Struan went on deck and checked the rigging and the sails. A four-pound cannon was in the bow and another in the stern. He made sure that both were loaded and primed, and that the powder keg was full and the powder dry. Grape and shot were ready at hand. He ordered Wung to assemble the crew and picked up a belaying pin. There were eight men aboard.

“You saya,” he said to Wung, “all knives, all boom-boom, on deck plenty quick-quick.”

“Ayee yah, no can,” Wung protested. “Plenty pirate in river. Plenty—”

Struan’s fist caught him in the throat and slammed him against the gunnel. The crew chattered angrily and prepared to rush Struan, but the raised belaying pin discouraged them.

“All knives, all boom-boom on deck, plenty quick,” Struan repeated, his voice steely.

Wung hauled himself up weakly and muttered something in Cantonese. After an ominous silence he threw his knife on the deck, and, grudgingly, the others followed suit. Struan told him to gather up the knives and tie them in a piece of sacking that was on the deck. Next he made the crew turn around and he began to search them. He found a small pistol on the third man, and with the butt end smashed the man across the side of the head. Four more knives clattered to the deck from other men, and out of the corner of his eye Struan saw Wung drop a small fighting hatchet overboard.

After he had searched the men, he ordered them to stay on deck and taking the weapons with him, he carefully searched the rest of the ship. There was no one concealed belowdecks. He found a cache of four muskets, six swords, four bows and arrows and three fighting irons, behind some crates, and carried them into the cabin.

“Heya, May-may, youa hear what topside can?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said, as softly. “You say we can talk English in front of Ah Gip safely. You dinna want to now?”

“I forgot. Habit. Nay, lass, it’s all right.”

“Why hit Wung? He’s Jin-qua’s trusted, no?”

“The cargo’s the lodestone of this voyage.”

“ ‘Lodestone’?”

“Magnet. Compass needle.”

“Oh, I understand.” May-may sat on the bunk, her nostrils quivering from the stench of rotting fish. “I be very sick if I stay here. Can I be on deck?”

“Wait till we’re clear of Canton. You’re safer here. Much safer.”

“How long before we meet 
China Cloud?
”

“A little after first light—if Wolfgang makes no mistake on the rendezvous.”

“Is that possible?”

“With this cargo, anything’s possible.” Struan picked up one of the muskets. “Do you know how to use this?”

“Wat for should I shoot gunses? Me, I am a civilizationed fright-filled old woman—of great beauty I agree, but na gunses.”

He showed her. “If anyone but me comes into the cabin, kill him.” He went back on deck, carrying another musket. The lorcha was in mid-channel now, under a soaring moon, ponderous and low in the water and making about four knots. They were still passing the suburbs of Canton, and both sides of the river were thickly lined with floating villages. From time to time they passed boats and sampans and junks beating upstream. The river here was half a mile wide, and there were boats of all sizes ahead and astern going downstream.

The sky told Struan that the weather would be fair, but the tang on the wind felt smooth and dry and dewless, without body. He knew that this wind would lessen and further reduce their speed. But he was not worried; he had made the journey so many times that he knew the shoals and the rivers and tributaries and checkpoints intimately.

The approach to Canton was a maze of waterways and islands, large and small, covering an area five miles by twenty miles. There were many different ways to come upstream. And to go downstream.

Struan was happy to be afloat again. And happy that their journey to the Marble Pagoda had begun. He swayed easily to the motion of the lorcha. Wung was near the helmsman, and the crew was scattered around the deck, malevolent and sullen. Struan saw that the prow lookout was in place.

Ahead, half a mile, the river forked around an island. At the approaches to the fork was a shoal to be avoided. Struan said nothing and waited. He heard Wung speak to the helmsman, who put his tiller over and swerved the lorcha safely away from the shoal. Good, Struan thought. At least Wung knew part of the waterways. He was anxious to see what route Wung would take around the island. Both routes were good but the north was better than the south. The lorcha held its course and headed into the north channel. Struan turned and shook his head and pointed to the south channel just in case Wung had arranged an ambush.

The helmsman glanced at Wung for confirmation. Struan made only the slightest movement toward the helmsman. The helm was swung over quickly and the sails flapped momentarily and the lorcha came about onto the new course.

“Wat for go that way, heya? Wat for hit my? Plenty bad. Plenty.” Wung moved over to the gunnel and glared into the night.

The wind freshened slightly, and the lorcha increased speed as they moved into the south channel. At the limit of their tack, Struan motioned the helmsman to put his tiller over. The boat came about slowly, and then, on the new tack, the wind caught the flapping sails. The booms creaked across the deck and the boat lurched slightly and began to gain way once more.

He ordered the sails trimmed and they sailed smoothly for half an hour, part of the river traffic. Then out of the corner of his eye Struan saw a big lorcha bearing down on them swiftly from the windward. Brock was standing in the bow. Struan crouched and scurried over to the tiller and shoved the man aside. Wung and the helmsman were startled and began chattering excitedly, and all the crew watched Struan.

He swung the tiller hard to starboard and prayed that the lorcha would answer the helm quickly. He heard Brock’s voice faintly—“Starboard yor helm, right smartly!”—and he felt the wind scud from his sails. Struan slammed the tiller over to jibe and reverse direction; but the lorcha did not respond, and Brock’s lorcha drew alongside. He saw the grappling hooks catch and hold fast. He leveled a musket.

“Oh, it’s thee, Dirk, by God!” Brock called out, feigning astonishment. He was leaning on the gunnel, a broad smile on his face.

“Grapples are an act of piracy, Brock!” Struan tossed his knife, haft first, to Wung. “Chop grapples quick-quick!”

“Right you are, lad. Beg pardon for the grapples,” Brock said. “I thort you be lorcha in need of a tow. Doan see thy flag aloft. Thee be ashamed of it maybe?”

Struan saw that Brock’s crew was armed and at action stations. Gorth was on the poop deck beside a small swivel gun, and although the gun was not pointing at him, he knew it would be primed and ready to fire. “Next time you grapple a ship of mine, I’ll presume you’re pirates and blow your head off.”

“Permission to come aboard, Dirk?”

“Aye.”

Brock slipped through the rigging of his ship and leaped aboard. Three men jumped up on the gunnel to follow him, but Struan leveled the musket and shouted, “Hold there! Any of you come aboard without permission, I’ll blow you to hell.”

The men stopped in their tracks.

“Quite right,” Brock said sardonically. “That be the law of the sea. A captain invites who he likes and who he doan. Stay where thee be!”

Struan shoved Wung forward. “Chop grapples!” The frightened Chinese rushed forward and began to hack the ropes. Gorth swung the swivel gun and Struan aimed at him.

“Stand off, Gorth!” Brock said sharply. The law of the sea was on Struan’s side: grappling was an act of piracy. And coming aboard armed, without permission, was piracy, and of all the laws of England none were so zealously guarded or enforced as the laws of ships at sea and the powers of a captain afloat. For piracy there was only one punishment: hanging.

Wung cut the last of the lines and the boats began to drift apart. When Brock’s lorcha was thirty feet away, Struan put down the musket and shouted, “You come within fifty feet of me without permission, by God, I’ll charge you with piracy!” Then he leaned against the gunnel. “What’s all this about, Tyler?”

“I could ask thee the same thing, Dirk,” Brock said easily. “I seed thee snuck down in that there sampan yesterday.” His eye glittered in the light of the lantern. “Then I seed thee, dressed right proper curious like a coolie and, glory be to God, thee went back into factory. Strange, says I. Maybe old Dirk’s gone sick in the head. Or maybe old Dirk needin’ a hand to get safe out of Canton. So we sails downstream aways and then snuck back and anchors north o’ the Settlement. Then we seed thee board this stinking craft. Thee an’ two doxies.”

“What I do’s my own affair.”

“Yus, that it be.” Struan’s mind was churning. He knew that Brock’s lorcha was far swifter than his, that the crew was dangerous and well armed, and that he was no match for them alone. He cursed himself for being so confident and for not keeping watch.

But then you could na have seen Brock sneak upstream. How to put Brock to your advantage? Must be some way. He can easily run you down in the night, and even if you survive, there’d be little you could prove. Brock’d claim that it was an accident. Then, too, May-may can na swim.