The Silver Lotus (7 page)

At about five-fifteen the incoming tide went slack, and everything was made ready. The offshore winds would gain strength soon, but in the meantime they were blessed with a dense coastal fog that came up out of nowhere. Captain Hammond was reassured that the Wong Chi were now just as blind as he was. However, he took the covering fog as an opportunity to raise all possible sails on his three working masts.

The captain had kept his ship in place by the judicious use of three anchors, one at the bow, one to port nearest the shore, and one off the stern. As the tide turned, Captain Hammond called the deckhands to haul in the port anchor, and to do everything as quietly as possible. Then, as the offshore breezes began to push the fog to sea, he paid off the stern anchor cable and slowly crept up on the bow anchor, which he also ordered hauled up as quietly as possible. As the power of tidal race increased, and the breezes steadied from the land, the captain ordered the mainsail booms hauled out wing to wing to catch as much of the wind as possible. The sails slowly billowed with strength and a desire for momentum. The men could hear the low moans and
chirping sounds caused by the extraordinary stretch and strain on the heavy stern anchor cable, but still the ship hung suspended against the forces of wind and tide like a giant spider about to drop on an unsuspecting cricket.

Lady Yee, now attired in black oilskins, stood alongside her husband outside the pilothouse. The fog would soon blow to sea, and it was imperative that they move at once. If their charade was going to work at all, the half-light of dawn was imperative to complete the effect. Besides, the deck watches on the junks would just be changing, and, it was hoped, this would only add to their confusion.

Captain Hammond walked Lady Yee to the foremast, where she was lifted up to take a seat on the furled foremast sail. From there she would conduct her percussive chorus of pots and pans, and with the help of a megaphone, exhort the Wong Chi to stay where they were and die like the traitorous slaves they were, for the Red Flag of
The Silver Lotus
had come to end their days and make widows and orphans of their families. It was a war cry that she had composed and rehearsed. Captain Hammond wasn't sure of the effect it would have on the pirates, but he honestly said it certainly scared him, and he spoke only limited Cantonese. But it also set him to wondering how such a demure creature as Lady Yee could come up with such bloodcurdling language, much less shout it at the top of her lungs.

A moment later the captain was informed that with the sails full, the stern anchor cable was likely to part under the strain any second. Suddenly orders flew like arrows, and Lady Yee's real-life Chinese opera began in earnest. Captain Hammond cued Lady Yee to begin the pot-banging chorus to cover the sound of two men chopping the stern anchor cable free. He could always get another anchor, or return later and recover it himself. While this was happening, the four hanged men were carefully hoisted halfway up the height of the mast and left to swing in the wind.

Suddenly the anchor cable parted with a loud splash and
The Silver Lotus
, for all her length and tonnage, seemed to shoot forward like a bull elk. Lady Yee encouraged her chorus to beat at a precise tempo as loudly as possible. Soon everybody with a free hand picked up the rhythm and started pounding away on anything made of metal, with whatever was at hand. It began to seem as though the ship itself were making the din.

As
The Silver Lotus
exited the fog bank, the captain left instructions with the helmsman, and then made his way forward to the bow, where the signal gun had been lashed in place for its one glorious roar of defiance. This would soon be followed by the screech of colored rockets and Lady Yee's bloodthirsty promises of a future in hell for all those who opposed the will of the Red Flag of
The Silver Lotus
. Captain Hammond waited until he judged the wind coming from astern strong enough to blow the smoke ahead of the ship, and then had the fire buckets ignited. The sulfur immediately sent clouds of ocher smoke billowing ahead of the ship. The smoke mingled with the fog to create a most unusual atmosphere that smelled like the breath of hell, but Hammond had taken the precaution of tying a wet bandana over his nose and mouth to keep from breathing in the cloying fumes. Even then, the unpleasant odor was enough to gag the devil himself.

With the help of the tide and the wind, Captain Hammond estimated the ship was moving at a good six knots, more than enough speed to stave in the sides of any junk that happened to be in its path. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, but he'd suffer little or no remorse if it did. He waited patiently in the bow near the signal gun.

The Wong Chi pirate fleet had most certainly taken note of the mysterious clanging sounds coming out of the fog and was waiting with sails set as
The Silver Lotus
suddenly came lurching out of the fog like an animated canvas mountain. As soon as he was sure that the pirates had gotten a good look at what was coming after them—hanged
men, capering red-faced devils, and all—Captain Hammond fired the cannon. Like everyone else, he was stunned by the effect. With an ungodly explosion that left ears ringing, the cannon delivered a great arc of fire that leapt from the barrel and rained burning sulfur and red stars down on everything ahead for two hundred yards. Without resting on his laurels, the captain then fired off both port and starboard rockets. They exploded very colorfully just feet over the junks, setting some of their sails alight. In the meantime the slow metered clanging continued, while Lady Yee stood on the boom with her megaphone screaming in Chinese at the Wong Chi fleet to lower their sails and meet death with dignity so as not to shame their ancestors.

Captain Hammond hadn't as yet taken notice of the Wong Chi's response. Then one of the armed seamen stationed high in the ratlines shouted down to the deck to get his captain's attention, and then pointed at the pirate fleet just ahead. Captain Hammond rushed to the port railing and watched in stunned disbelief. What he saw was a scene of mass confusion. The sails of some of the junks that had been stationed just ahead of his ship as it came out of the fog had been set afire by the burning sulfur, and their crews were trampling each other in futile attempts to extinguish the flames with buckets of seawater. Meanwhile, those frantic junk crews that were closest to the ship, and faced the greatest perceived hazard, chose the better part of valor and jumped into the sea to avoid imminent destruction.

The alarm spread as the Wong Chi helplessly called to one another for help, but nothing useful came in reply, and none ventured closer to help their comrades. The captain watched the scene in amused surprise. Suddenly, like an electric shock shared by those holding hands, the entire Wong Chi fleet took flight and, using their long sculling oars in a panic, abruptly turned in place and scattered in all directions like a covey of quail surprised by a fox. Then
The Silver Lotus
sailed majestically through the abandoned remnants of the pirate fleet, and Lady
Yee silenced the tin-pan chorus. As the speed increased, all went quiet aboard ship, and they traveled on without further disturbance or threat.

The captain immediately ordered that the smoldering contents of the fire buckets be thrown into the sea and the hanged men be lowered to the deck. He then helped Lady Yee down from the boom, and as they walked together toward the stern a spontaneous cheer went up from the crew. They hailed their beloved mistress as the queen of the Eastern Sea and the mortal dread of the Pearl River Red Flag Wong Chi. She accepted their adulation with becoming modesty and quietly asked her husband if the crew might not be allowed an undiluted ration of spirits to celebrate their victory. He bowed to her wishes, of course, but only after the ship had been trimmed up, cleaned up, and set on a proper course for Viet Nam.

5

IN THE COURSE of their many journeys together, Captain Hammond and Lady Yee sailed to every port in the Pacific Ocean worth a cargo, including Hawaii, Mexico, and California. Lady Yee's keen observations concerning these destinations were recorded in her daybook. She was unimpressed with the port of San Francisco and held unflattering opinions concerning the inhabitants. Lady Yee, who had met Americans in China, and liked them in the main, found Americans at home in California a very disquieting species indeed. She tried to set aside the fact that they were culturally averse to bathing regularly and paid little attention to the cleanliness of their clothes, or to their houses for that matter. She was tolerant of their general lack of education and sense of culture, and she could endure and forgive their thoughtless manners and total absence of tact, but she simply could not abide the American concept of what constituted civilized food. She refused to partake in anything as barbarian as large animal parts roasted on a spit, or blood-rare beefsteaks, or vegetables boiled or roasted to near-pulp. Corn on the cob was impossible to eat with any finesse, and what passed for pastry and confection wasn't worth discussing. Lady Yee's food had always been prepared by qualified, if not renowned, chefs. And the one stipulation she settled upon before following her husband to sea was the employment of an experienced Chinese cook named Ah Chu for
herself and her maid, Li-Lee. Captain Hammond, who was very partial to several schools of Asian cuisine, readily agreed, and soon even the crew came to be of the opinion that the rations aboard ship were much improved under the guidance of Lady Yee's chef. But once in San Francisco, and discovering that Ah Chu could not follow her to a hotel and wait upon her there, Lady Yee refused to leave the ship for the pleasures that the best lodgings in the city might provide. To her way of thinking, bad food, rude service, bedbugs, used linen, and open chamber pots were not statements of civilized luxury. She pointed out that she lived far better aboard her ship, with her own maid and her own cook, than anyone in a city hotel.

It was also perhaps Lady Yee's pointed distaste for mass alcoholism, and the subsequent street violence of the city, that made her feel ill at ease there. When her husband once escorted her to a fashionable milliner's emporium in the city, Lady Yee counted fifty-seven busy taverns in a three-mile carriage ride, and on the way back to the ship, after spending an evening with a few of her husband's friends, she witnessed three drunken brawls, a stabbing, and a number of public altercations that involved the loud use of provocative language totally composed of profanity. And if that weren't enough to disturb Lady Yee's sense of civility, then certainly the treatment of her fellow Chinese, now residing in “the land under the Gold Mountain,” obliterated all desire for Lady Yee to make herself feel at home in San Francisco. She was certainly aware that in the Americas she would always be looked down upon because of her race and her gender, but that didn't preclude her fervent desire to make a life for herself that disdained those conventions. Aboard
The Silver Lotus
she had status, responsibility, respect, and honest affection. As part owner of Hammond & Yee, and quite wealthy in her own right, she also had the power to influence many aspects of her own life that were, in effect, quite above and beyond the privileges and prerogatives allowed most women who lived ashore, no matter what their race, station, or lineage.

It should be noted that despite her youth, Lady Yee maintained very liberal and open-minded sensibilities. She avoided making broad judgments based upon information or experience drawn from limited samples. It was usually her habit to take on humanity one person at a time, and make her evaluations accordingly, regardless of superficialities, fortunes, or titles. So of course she knew that the legendary California so often described to her by her husband must be somewhere else, because San Francisco Bay as a harbor was just the same tidewater snake pit as any other big harbor around the world, including Canton or Shanghai, and it attracted and nurtured exactly the same species of vice, violence, and crime. With this in mind, Lady Yee could see no reason to try and feel comfortable ashore. Besides, the money she saved on frivolous entertainments and expensive hotels went into making constant improvements to the daily comforts both captain and crew enjoyed at sea or at anchor. This made a berth on
The Silver Lotus
very desirable by any measure.

On one of their voyages to California, Captain Hammond journeyed north from San Diego to Monterey Bay. They sailed close enough to shore for Captain Hammond and Lady Yee to discover some stunning stretches of coastline. In many places the mountains ended their progress in rockbound cliffs, as the crashing ocean waves had cut away all footing. Captain Hammond had never taken a cargo out of Monterey before since it was a fishing port, and he didn't carry perishables. But on this occasion he had been commissioned by his father-in-law to purchase a large cargo of dried squid for shipment to Canton. The squid were caught, dried, placed in salt, and packed in reused tea chests by Chinese fishermen who worked the bay. These courageous boatmen and their families lived in ramshackle villages constructed from anything at hand, including driftwood. Like cliff-bound seabird nests, these haphazard dwellings clung precariously along the rock-strewn shore at several locations around the bay.

By his own estimation, the captain judged the weight of the salt as at least a third more than that of the weight of the squid, but it mattered
little to him as long as Master Yee was standing security for the agreed price. Though he took every opportunity to oblige his father-in-law, there were limits, and in cases of business the limit was always set at price per ton upon safe delivery.

Because
The Silver Lotus
, at present holding two-thirds of her return cargo, drew too much water, loading the squid from the commercial pier was deemed impractical, and it was decided to take on this last bit of cargo at anchor, using the Chinese fishing junks as lighters. It would take longer to hoist and load, to be sure, but it gave Captain and Mrs. Hammond the opportunity to enjoy a small excursion through the countryside around Monterey and Pacific Grove, and then down the coast to Carmel. The captain was very taken with the area and told Lady Yee that because it was a fishing community, it reminded him somewhat of his birthplace on Deer Island in the state of Maine. Lady Yee thought the land around the bay quite lovely, but above all other considerations, she secretly believed the place had great commercial potential as well, and encouraged her husband to think about buying property in the vicinity as an investment. Since she was never wrong about such things, he gave the matter serious consideration, and the next day decided to open a sizable bank account in Monterey. He encouraged the bank to lend him assistance in finding suitable property, and the bank president, Mr. Hodges, who was only too pleased to have Captain Hammond, and his twenty-eight thousand dollars, as a new client, bent every effort toward being of assistance. To show his appreciation, Mr. Hodges informed the captain that they had recently received an order from the estate of the late Mr. Liam O'Sheen to place his town residence on the block. His heirs preferred living on their ranch in Big Sur and no longer wished to support the expense of the property.