Tai-Pan (35 page)

Struan picked up his chopsticks again and meticulously chose another dim sum from the plate: the smallest and the most delicate, the most difficult to hold. It was one of the steamed, shrimp-filled doughs, the white pastry so thin as to be almost translucent. He lifted it quickly and effortlessly, praying to himself that he wouldn’t drop it. He held it out at arm’s length, offering it to Wu Kwok.

Wu Kwok’s chopsticks snaked out and he took the dim sum and carried it to his small dish. But a tiny piece of shrimp fell onto the table. Though Wu Kwok remained impassive, Struan knew that he was enraged, for he had lost face.

Struan delivered the 
coup de grace.
 Leaning over, he picked up the morsel of shrimp and put it on his plate, and selected another tiny dim sum. Again he offered it. Wu Kwok took it. He did not drop any part of it.

He offered one to Struan, and Struan took it casually in midair and ate with relish but refused the next one offered. It was the height of Chinese decorum to pretend to the host that the food was so good that one could eat no more, even though both host and guest knew they would continue to eat ravenously.

“You take more grub, matey! There be plenty o’ the likes o’ this,” Wu Kwok said suddenly, pressing him as a host should.

The shock of hearing the harsh Cockney accent coming from Wu Kwok lessened Struan’s pleasure with the face he had gained by making Wu Kwok speak first.

“Thank you. I’m glad you speak English. That makes things easier,” Struan said. “A lot easier.”

“Yus, that it do.” Wu Kwok was very proud that he could talk barbarian.

“Where did you learn English?” Struan leaned down and scratched his ankle. The deck and cushions were flea-infested.

“Where’d the likes o’ you learn t’ eat like’n 
China
 man, hey?”

Struan selected another pastry. “I’ve tried to learn Cantonese, many times. But I’m na a good student and my tongue canna get the sounds right.” He ate the pastry delicately and drank some tea. “The tea is excellent. From Soochow?”

Wu Kwok shook his head, “Lin Tin. You likes Soochow tea?”

“Lin Tin is better.”

“I learned English from Scragger’n others. Over years.” He ate for a moment and again pressed on Struan more of the delicious food. “Have more grub, mate. You be a queer’n. I be right proper glad t’ meet a man o’ the likes of you. You baint natural, I’ll be bound. You’d take many a day to die, many a day.”

Struan’s eyes became greener and more luminous. “You’d die very quickly. My methods are different from yours. One moment alive, the next dead.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s best—for friend or enemy. Or mad dog!”

“Why you talks so strange, eh?” Wu Kwok asked after a dangerous pause.

“What?”

“You doan talks like me. You be hard to un’erstand. Sounds different like.”

“There are many dialects—kinds—of English,” Struan said calmly, giving Wu Kwok face.

“He be a toff, Wu Kwok, like I sayed,” Scragger explained. “Toffs talk different. They go t’ school like I tol’ you.”

“Do that gallows bait Scraggier talk true, matey? My English baint proper?”

“Who talks more correct Cantonese—a peasant or a schoolmaster? The peasant’s is correct for the fields an’ the schoolmaster’s for the school.”

Wu Kwok leaned back on the cushions and sipped his tea. He broke the silence. “We heard you’ve bullion aboard. Forty lac.”

“How’d you get this?” Struan unbunched his fist and put the half coin on the table.

“One ’arf a coin, one favor, right, matey?”

“Aye,” Struan said, furious at himself for falling into Jin-qua’s trap. “How’d you get it?”

“From me dad.”

“How’d he get it?”

“Where’d you think that old highwayman Jin-qua laid his dirty mitts fast on forty lac o’ bullion, matey? Eh? From his old shipmates, o’ course. You’ve ten lac o’ me dad’s aboard.” Wu Kwok’s belly shook with laughter. “Pour ’Is Honor some grog, Scragger. He be needin’ it.”

“Wu Fang Choi and Jin-qua are shipmates?” Struan asked, shaken.

“In a manner o’ speakin’, matey. We be protecting his sea trade from muck-pissed pirate. We be keepers o’ the sea. It be fair do’s to pay for service, eh? An’ a wise man invest his money to profit, hey? So we invests with him occasional. Tea, silk, opium. Loans.” Wu Kwok held his belly, and tears of laughter seeped from his slitted eyes. “So now we be partners like, us’n Noble House. Wot better invest be there, eh, matey?”

“What’s your ‘favor,’ Wu Kwok?”

“We be drinking to the bullion and yor joss, Tai-Pan. Then we talks.”

“He sayed t’ hang the boy if he were aboard more’n an hour,” Scragger said, filling three tankards with rum. “An’ if you raised sail, to blow us’n out o’ the sea and hang the lad.”

“How long be’n hour, mate?”

“Long enough.”

Wu Kwok ate for a moment. “You’d hang th’ lad?”

“Would you?” Struan took out his timepiece and laid it on the table. “You’ve used up half your time.”

Wu Kwok accepted a tankard from Scragger and drank slowly. Struan felt the hair on his neck prickle with the tension. He could hear the muted sounds of babbling Chinese and straining hawsers and creaking timbers.

There was a faint patter of rain on the deck above. Wu Kwok picked up a toothpick and cleaned his teeth, one hand politely covering his mouth. The rain intensified.

“Th’ favor of Wu Fang Choi,” Wu Kwok began. “Yor fleet be twenty clippers, right?”

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen. On each we puts one o’ our lads. You train they as cap’ns. Officers. Nineteen men. You train ’em good. Howsomever you wants as proper cap’ns. Lash ’em, keelhaul ’em, wot you wishes—if they baint obeying—but no killing. For five year they be yorn, then they come back ’ome. Next: In a year’n a day we wants a clipper. Like 
China Cloud.
 We pay bullion wot she costed. You give us’n bills an’ the like, an’ we pays bullion. Cannoned an’ rigged an’ sailed like 
China Cloud.
 Ten o’ our men to go to Blighty to watch her builded, then come home with her. Where an’ how we takes the ship come later— right, Scragger?”

“Yus.”

“Last, we giv’ you a nipper—three nippers—to train. Three boys to train like toffs. Best school in Lon’on,” Wu Kwok said. “Wot ever it costed.”

“Best clotheses an’ carriages an’ lodgings an’ grub,” Scragger added. “Like bleeding toffs they t’ be brung up. Treated proper. Oxford or Cambridge Unyversity. Yus. Through t’ unyversity and then ’ome.”

“That’s na one favor,” Struan said. “That’s many.”

“Many—few—they be favor,” Wu Kwok said viciously. “By God, they be the askt. Maybe I takes the ten lac back an’ the thirty as well. Then buy ship. If money, buy anything, right, matey? Yus, I takes lacs maybe and make deal with One-Eye Devil. Wot’s ‘is name?”

“Brock,” Scragger said.

“Aye, Brock. Make deal with Brock or other. Deal is deal. Just train men. One ship. Fair ask. You say yes or no. ”

“I’ll make a new deal with you. Take back the coin, and, with or without me aboard 
China Cloud,
 just try to take all the bullion, by God.”

“There be two hundred ship over the horizon. I lose hundred, two hundred ships, never mind. I take lac, Tai-Pan. I take lac.”

Struan picked up his half coin and stood up. “Agreed?”

“No agree. Favor—you agree favor. Has Tai-Pan of Noble House no face, heya? Yes, no?”

“In one month bring a hundred men, none of whom are wanted by the mandarins for any crime, all of whom can read and write. Of these I pick nineteen to be captains. And ten men to watch the building. Bring the three boys then.”

“Too dangerous, matey,” Wu Kwok said, “so many men. Right, Scragger?”

“Not if we brunged ’em, say t’ Aberdeen. To pick be fair, no harm in that. Eh? Secret like?”

Wu Kwok pondered a moment. “Agreed. One month. Aberdeen.”

“I’ll hand the clipper over to you personally—or to Wu Fang Choi—only,” Struan said. “No one else.”

“To any I sends.”

“No.”

“Or to me, matey?” Scragger said.

“No. To Wu Kwok or to Wu Fang Choi. In open seas.”

“Why?” Wu Kwok said. “Eh, why? Wot muckstink devilment be in yor head, matey?”

“She’ll be your ship. I’m nae passing over such a beauty to anyone else. Where’s your face, eh?”

“Agreed,” Wu Kwok said at last. “No treachery, by God, or you’ll pay.”

Struan contemptuously started for the door, but Scragger blocked his path. “Yor holy oath, Tai-Pan?”

“Jin-qua’s already had it, Scragger. You know the value of my oath, by God!”

Scragger nodded to Wu Kwok and stepped aside; “Thankee, Tai-Pan.”

“Seeing as how you agrees, so nice and friendly like, Tai-Pan,” Wu Kwok said, “me dad’s sended a gift for you and a message.” He waved a hand at Scragger who opened a sea chest, brought out a bundle, handed it to Struan.

The bundle contained a flag—the entwined Lion and Dragon. And a ship’s log book: the log book of the lost 
Scarlet Cloud.

Struan opened the book and turned to the last page: “Nov. 16th. Noon. N 11° 23’ 11” E 114° 9’ 8”. Storms continuing, gale force. At three bells in the middle watch last night storm sails were carried away and the masts. Our ship was thrust helpless here onto Tizard Reefs where, by Divine Mercy, she came to rest, her keel torn away and hull holed.

“Nov. 18th. Four o’clock. Four junks sighted northeast by east. Final preparing for abandoning ship done.

“Nov. 18th. Five o’clock. The four junks have changed course and are heading for us. I issued muskets. I have tried to prepare a cannon but the list of the ship forbade us. Prepared ourselves as best we can. In case they’re pirates.”

“Nov. 18th. Eight o’clock. Overrun. Pirates. Killed the first wave but they’re”

Struan closed the book. “You killed them all?”

“The junks was not part of our regilar fleets, mate. Leastways not mostly.”

“You killed them all?”

“They deaded ’emselves, Tai-Pan, I wasn’t there.”

“You knowed how some of them scalawags is, Tai-Pan,” Scragger said. “If the men’d be Wu Fang Choi’s—why’d he give you the log, eh? Word were brought to Wu Fang Choi. He sent me to have a look. There weren’t no men aboard when I were there. Or bodies. None.”

“You looted her?”

“You knowed the laws o’ the seas, Tai-Pan. She were shipwrecked an’ abandoned. Half yor cargo were salvaged. Sixteen cannon and a mess of powder’n shot.”

“Where’s the chronometer?”

Scragger’s eyebrows soared. “Why, aboard me junk, o’ course, not that I can use one. Yet. Finders keepers, eh? Fair do’s, eh? But you knowed, Tai-Pan, you knowed what them God-cursed scalawags done? They let her stop. Imagine that! Gawd’s truth. They let it run down. Took us’n weeks to find a merchantman with London time. An American, the 
Boston Skylark
.” He guffawed, remembering, then added, “Four o’ her boys elected to go along with us’n.”

“And the rest?”

“They were set adrift, off the Philippines. Near t’ shore. You’ve me oath. Three, four week ago.”

Wu Kwok shifted on the cushions, scratching leisurely. “Last, Tai-Pan, me dad sayed, ‘Ten taels a ship ain’t much for safe passage. Ten taels a ship an’ the English flag be protected by Wu Fang Choi.’ You’ve a new berth now, here at Hong Kong, so we beared. Put it to yor mandarin.”

“I might put one tael to him.”

“Six be the lowest. The lowest. That be wot my dad sayed, knowing you be a hard trader. Six.”

“One.”

“Sit. We drinks more grog an’ there be other grub corning,” Wu Kwok said.

“In five minutes this ship’s blown out of the water and the hostage hangs.”

Wu Kwok belched. “You baint hanging my son, matey.”

“O’ course,” Struan said disdainfully, “only some poor dressed-up lad.”

Wu Kwok smirked and drank deeply. “You be proper smart, Tai-Pan. Two taels a ship it is. Put it to your mandarin, eh? And tell you wot, keep the lad—hang him, throw him in the sea—he be yorn. Put him aboard us and I’ll hang him for you.”

“Wot?” Scragger exploded. “The lad baint your son?”

“O’ course, Scragger. You think I’m a fool?” Struan said harshly. “I know the value of the oath of scum.” He stalked out.

“But it were yor oath an’ mine,” Scragger said, appalled, to Wu Kwok. “We giv him our oath. You sayed he were yor son. You tol’ me, by God.”

“The Tai-Pan’d never put his son aboard us’n—why should I put mine aboard his’n?”

“But I give ’im me oath, by God. That be cheat!”

Wu Kwok got up very slowly. “You call me cheat, matey?”

“No, Guv’, no,” Scragger said quickly, keeping his blinding rage away from his face. “It were just me oath. We keeps our oaths. That not be proper wiv us’n, what were done, not proper. That be all.”

Wu Kwok shook his head wearily as he retired to his sleeping quarters. “Barbarians is right proper strange, matey. Right proper strange indeed.” The latticed door closed behind him.

Scragger went on deck. By God, he thought, almost weeping with rage, by God, that do it. I’ll fix that sodding, duck-fornicating heathen, by God, see if I don’t. But not till after the men be picked. Oh, no, not till then. Daren’t afore that, no, by God, ’cause that’d spoil everything.

But after that, by God, after that . . .

China Cloud
 cut through the driving rain, heading up the south coast of Hong Kong Island for the main harbor on the north side.

The Struans were having dinner in the main cabin: oyster stew, smoked sausages, kippers, boiled cabbage and bacon fat, cold fried chickens, sea biscuits, dishes of apple pie and preserved fruit pies. Sea-chilled dry white wine and champagne. And tea.

“Forty lacs—four coins,” Robb said, toying with his food. “One to Wu Fang Choi. Who has the other three?”

“Jin-qua kept one, certainly. Perhaps two,” Struan said. He reached across the table and helped himself to another fried kippered herring.

“We’re committed to an immense favor,” Robb said. “That’s worth ten lacs to those devils. With a clipper like 
China Cloud
 in their hands, why, even frigates could be ravaged. The Asian sea-lanes of the whole Empire could be cut. One ship—and ten men trained to build more. Nineteen men trained as captains—to train more! We’re trapped and our future’s trapped. Terrible.”