Tai-Pan (34 page)

“Hello, lad,” Struan said.

“What’s going on?”

Struan told him, and added, “The clothes suit you, lad. You’re looking better.”

“I am much better,” Culum said, feeling uncomfortable and alien.

When the pirate junk was a hundred yards away, 
China Cloud
 put a shot across her bows and Struan picked up a horn. “Heave to!” he shouted. “Or I’ll blow you out of the water!”

Obediently the junk swung into the wind and dropped her sails and began to drift with the strength of the tide.

“Ahoy, 
China Cloud!
 Permission to come aboard,” the black-bearded man shouted.

“Why, and who are you?”

“Cap’n Scragger, late o’ London Town,” the man called back and guffawed. “A word in yor ear, M’Lord Struan, privy like!”

“Come aboard alone. Unarmed!”

“Flag o’ truce, matey?”

“Aye!” Struan walked to the quarterdeck rail. “Keep the junk covered, Mr. Cudahy!”

“He be covered, sorr!”

A small dinghy was lowered over the side of the junk, and Scragger climbed into it nimbly and began rowing toward 
China Cloud.
 As he approached he began singing in a rich, lilting voice. It was a sea chantey, “Blow the Man Down.”

“Cocky sod,” Struan said, amused in spite of himself.

“Scragger’s an uncommon name,” Robb said. “Didn’t Great-Aunt Ethel marry a Scragger of London?”

“Aye. I thought the same, lad.” Struan grinned. “Mayhaps we’ve a relation who’s a pirate.”

“Aren’t we all pirates?”

Struan’s grin broadened. “The Noble House’ll be safe in your hands, Robb. You’re a wise man—wiser than you give yoursel’ credit for.” He looked back at the dinghy. “Cocky sod!”

Scragger appeared to be in his thirties. His long unkempt hair and his beard were raven-black. His eyes were pale blue and small, and his hands like hams. Golden rings hung from his ears and a jagged scar puckered the left side of his face.

He tied his dinghy up and scaled the boarding net with practiced ease. As he jumped onto the deck he touched his forelock with mock deference to the quarterdeck and made an elaborate bow. “Morning, Yor Honors!” Then to the seamen who were gaping at him, “Morning, mateys! Me guv’, Wu Fang Choi, wishes you a safe journey ’ome!” He laughed and showed broken teeth, then came to the quarterdeck and stopped in front of Struan. He was shorter than Struan but thicker. “Let’s go below!”

“Mr. Cudahy, search him!”

“Now, it be a flag o’ truce and I ain’t armed, that be the truth. You’ve me oath, so help me!” Scragger said, the picture of innocence.

“So you’ll be searched anyway!”

Scragger submitted to the search. “Be you satisfied, Tai-Pan?”

“For the moment.”

“Then let’s below. Alone. Like I asked.”

Struan checked the priming of his pistol and motioned Scragger down the gangway. “Rest of you stay on deck.”

To Struan’s amazement, Scragger proceeded through the ship with the familiarity of one who had been aboard before. Reaching the cabin, he plopped to the sea chair and stretched out his legs contentedly. “I’d like to wet me whistle afore I starts, if it please you. Rowin’ be thirsty work.”

“Rum?”

“Brandy. Ah, brandy! An’ if you’ve a keg to spare, I’ll be mighty favorable inclined.”

“To do what?”

“To be patient.” Scragger’s eyes were steely. “You be like wot I thort you be like.”

“You said you were late o’ London Town?”

“Yus, that I did. A long time ago. Ah, thankee,” Scragger said, accepting the tankard of fine brandy. He sniffed it lovingly, then gulped it down and sighed and brushed his greasy whiskers. “Ah, brandy, brandy! Only thing wrong with me present post be the lack of brandy. Does me heart good.”

Struan refilled the tankard.

“Thankee, Tai-Pan.”

Struan toyed with his pistol. “What part of London are you from?”

“Shoreditch, matey. That were where I were brung up.”

“What’s your Christian name?”

“Dick. Why?”

Struan shrugged. “Now get to the point,” he said. He planned to write by the next mail to find out if Dick Scragger was the name of a descendant of his great-aunt.

“That I will, Tai-Pan, that I will. Wu Fang Choi wants to talk to you. Alone. Now.”

“What about?”

“I didn’t askt him and ’ee didn’t tell me. ‘Go get the Tai-Pan,’ says he. So here I am.” He emptied the tankard, then smirked. “You’ve bullion aboard, so the rumor says. Eh?”

“Tell him I’ll see him here. He can come aboard alone and unarmed.”

Scragger roared with laughter and scratched unconsciously at the lice that infested him. “Now, you knows he baint about t’ do that, Tai-Pan, any more’n you’d go aboard alone his ship wivout protection like. You seed the boy aboard my junk?”

“Aye.”

“It be his youngest son. He be hostage. You’re to go aboard, armed if you likes, an’ the boy stays here.”

“And the boy turns out to be just a dressed-up coolie’s son and I get chopped!”

“Oh no,” Scragger said, pained. “You’ve me oath, by God, and ’is. We baint a scalawag bunch o’ pirates. We’ve three thousand ships in our fleets and rule these coasts as you rightly knowed. You’ve me oath, by God. An’ his.”

Struan noticed the white scars on Scragger’s wrists and knew there would be more on his ankles. “Why’re you, an Englishman, with him?”

“Why indeed, matey? Why indeed?” Scragger replied, rising. “Can I helps meself to more grog? Thank you kindly.” He brought the bottle back to the desk and settled himself again. “There be upwards of fifty of us Limeys through ‘is fleet. And fifteen or so others, Americans mostly, an’ one Frenchy. Captains, cannon makers, gunners, mates. I were a bosun’s mate by trade,” he continued expansively, inspired by the brandy. “Ten year or more ago I were shipwrecked on some islands north. The dirty little heathen bastards catched me for slave, Japaners they were. They sold me to some other heathen bastards, but I escaped and fell in with Wu Fang. He offer me a berth when he knowed I were a bosun’s mate and could do most things aboard.” He drained the tankard, belched, and refilled it. “Now, do we go or doan we?”

“Why do you na stay aboard now? I can blow a path through Wu Fang right smartly.”

“Thank you, matey, but I likes it where I be.”

“How long were you a convict?”

Scragger’s tankard stopped in midair and his expression became guarded. “Long enough, matey.” He looked at the wrist scars. “The iron marks, hey? Aye, the marks be still with me after twelve year.”

“Where’d you escape from? Botany Bay?”

“Aye, Botany Bay it were,” Scragger said, amiable once more. “Fifteen year transportation I got when just a lad, leastways when I were younger. Twenty-five abouts. How old be you?”

“Old enough.”

“I’ve never knowed for sure. Maybe I’m thirty-five or forty-five. Yus. Fifteen year for striking a muck-pissed mate on a muck-pissed frigate.”

“You were lucky you were na hanged.”

“Yus, that I were.” Scragger happily belched again. “I likes talking to you, Tai-Pan. It be a change from me mates. Yus, transported from Blighty I were. Nine month at sea chained along o’ four hundred other poor devils an’ the same of women or thereabouts. Chained belowdecks we were. Nine months or more. Water an’ hardtack an’ no beef. That’s no way to treat a man, no way at all. A hundred of us lived to reach port. We mutinied in the port o’ Sydney and broke our chains. Killed all the muck-ficked jailers. Then into the bush for a year, then I found me a ship. A merchantman.” Scragger chuckled malevolently. “Leastways, we fed on merchantmen.” He gazed into the depths of his tankard and his smile disappeared. “Yus, gallows bait, that what we all be, God curse all piss-arsed peelers,” he snarled. For a moment he fell silent, lost in his memories. “But I were shipwrecked like I said, and the rest.”

Struan lit a cheroot. “Why serve a mad-dog pirate scum like Wu Fang?”

“I’ll tell you, matey. I’m free like the wind. I got three wives an’ all the food I can eat, an’ pay, an’ I be captain of a ship. He treats me better’n my God-cursed kin. God-cursed kin! Yus. I be gallows bait to they. But to Wu Fang I baint, an’ where else and how else could the likes o’ me have wives an’ food and loot and no peelers an’ no gallows, eh? Course I be wiv him—or any wot gives me that.” He got up. “Now be you acomin’ like he asked or do we have to board you?”

“Board me, Captain Scragger. But first finish your brandy. It’ll be the last you taste on this earth.”

“We be having more’n a hundred ships again’ you.”

“You must think me a right proper fool. Wu Fang’d never venture personally into these waters. Never. Na with our warships just the other side of Hong Kong. Wu Fang’s na wi’ your fleet.”

“You be right proper smart, Tai-Pan,” Scragger cackled. “I were warned. Yus. Wu Fang baint with us but his chief admiral be. Wu Kwok, his eldest son. An’ the boy be ’is. That be the truth.”

“Truth wears many faces, Scragger,” Struan said. “Now get to hell off my ship. The flag o’ truce is for your vessel only. I’ll show you what I think of your godrotting pirate fleet.”

“That you will, Tai-Pan, given ’arf a chance. Oh yus, I forgot,” he said and pulled out a small leather bag that was thonged around his neck. He took out a folded piece of paper and pushed it across the desk. “I were to give you this,” he said, his face twisting derisively.

Struan unfolded the paper. It bore Jin-qua’s chop. And it contained one of the coin halves.

Struan was standing easily in the prow of his longboat, his hands deep in the pockets of his heavy sea coat, a fighting iron thonged to his wrist, pistols in his belt. His men were rowing tensely, heavily armed. Scragger was sitting amidships boozily singing a sea chantey. A hundred yards ahead was the pirate flagship. By prearrangement with Scragger—at Struan’s insistence—the flagship had detached itself from the protective junk fleet and had moved closer to shore, a few hundred yards to leeward of 
China Cloud.
 There, with only the small aft sail aloft to give her leeway, the flagship was under 
China Cloud’s
 guns and at her mercy. But the remainder of the junk armada was still in blockade positions surrounding the two ships.

Struan knew that it was dangerous to board the pirate ship alone, but the broken coin left him no choice. He would have taken Mauss along—an interpreter was necessary and Mauss was also a demon in a fight. But Scragger had refused: “Alone, Tai-Pan. There be they aboard wot talks the heathen and talks the English. Alone. Armed if you likes but alone. That be the askt.”

Before leaving 
China Cloud,
 Struan had given final orders in front of Scragger.

“If the flagship raises sail, blow her out of the water. If I’ve na left in one hour, blow her out of the water.”

“Now, Tai-Pan,” Scragger had said uncomfortably, forcing a laugh, “that not be the way of alooking at ’is invitation like. No way at all, at all. The flag o’ truce, matey.”

“Blow her out of the water. But first hang the boy from the yardarm.”

“Don’t worry,” Orlov said malevolently. “The boy’s dead, and by the blood of Jesus Christ I’ll never leave this water while one junk’s afloat.”

“Oars ho!” Struan ordered as the cutter came alongside the junk. A hundred Chinese pirates lined the sides, chattering, jeering. Struan noted the firing ports. Twenty a side. Forty guns.

He mounted the boarding ladder, and once on deck he observed that the cannons were in good order; that powder kegs were scattered carelessly, and stink bombs and fire bombs numerous; that the pirate ship was heavily manned. Filth everywhere but no sign of disease or scurvy. Sails in good condition, rigging tight. Hard—if it impossible—to take, hand to hand. But no trouble for 
China Cloud
 to sink—with joss.

He followed Scragger below to the main cabin under the poop deck, unconsciously marking gangways and hazards in case retreat were necessary. They came to a filthy anteroom jammed with men. Scragger pushed through them to a door at the far end, guarded by a truculent Chinese who pointed to Struan’s weapons and reviled Scragger. But Scragger shouted back in Cantonese and, contemptuously shoving the guard aside with one hand, opened the door.

The cabin was enormous. Dirty cushions littered a raised dais which was dominated by a low, scarlet-lacquered table. The room, like the ship, stank of sweat and decayed fish and blood. Behind the dais aft was a latticed wall, deck to bulkhead. It was richly carved, and curtained from the other side, where the warlord slept. Impossible to see through from this side, Struan thought, but easy to shoot or stick a sword through. He noted the four barred portholes, and six oil lanterns swinging from the rafter beams.

A door in the latticed wall opened.

Wu Kwok was short and burly and middle-aged. His face was round and cruel, his queue long and greasy. The rich green silk gown tied around his protruding belly was grease-stained. He wore fine leather seaboots, and his wrists were encircled with many priceless jade bracelets.

He appraised Struan for a while, then motioned him to the dais and sat down on one side of the table. Struan sat opposite him. Scragger leaned against the closed door, scratching absently, a sardonic smile on his face.

Struan and Wu Kwok stared at each other unwaveringly, motionless. At length Wu Kwok raised his hand slightly and a servant brought chopsticks and cups and tea and moon cakes—tiny delicate rice-flour cakes stuffed with almond custard—and a plate of assorted 
dim sum.

Dim sum were small delicate rice-dough pastries filled with shrimp or fried pork or chicken or vegetables, or fish. Some were steamed, others deep-fried.

The servant poured the tea.

Wu Kwok lifted his cup and motioned Struan to do the same. They drank silently, their eyes locked. Then the pirate picked up his chopsticks and selected a dim sum. He placed it on the small dish in front of Struan and motioned him to eat. Struan knew that although he had been provided with chopsticks, Wu Kwok expected him to eat with his hands like a barbarian and lose face.

Up you, you flyblown offal, he thought, and thanked his joss for May-may. He picked up the chopsticks deftly and carried the dim sum to his mouth and replaced the chopsticks on their porcelain bed and chewed with enjoyment, and was further pleased to sense the pirate’s astonishment —that a barbarian could eat like a civilized person!