Cinnamon and Gunpowder (46 page)

Finally we came to large gallery whose walls were lined with kegs and chests. Braga lit more lanterns, and I saw that smaller tunnels branched from this main room, and each led to chambers filled with such containers.

“All of this is powder?” Mabbot asked.

“Some of it is salt to draw off the dampness, but between this and the other chambers up ahead, there is nearly two tons of powder here. The Fox has always accepted gunpowder in payment for opium from those who could not put their hands on silver.”

“And the Pendleton compound—”

“Is right above us.”

“Get to it, then, my feet are itching for deck.”

After only a few minutes of sorting lengths of fuses on the dark floor, Braga began to curse under his breath. We watched him in silence for a long time before Mabbot said, “Mr. Braga, can’t we be of use?”

“Hell … I’ll have to take the tunnels to the surface. In the confusion, I’ll have a chance enough.”

“I don’t catch your meaning.”

“They weren’t ready. The fuses aren’t long enough to give us time to get back. You two will have to start ahead. I’ll give you enough to get to the hulk, and then I’ll light them and head up through the warehouses. Just follow this vine on the rug”—he pointed to a particularly large blossom and the main vine from which it was suspended—“and you’ll find your way out.”

“How do you plan to reach the ship?”

“I’m not a seaman. I’ve lived on the banks of the Pearl River all my life. You’ve brought me home.”

“Can I count on you?”

“I’m in your debt, Captain, for pulling me from the hole on the penal island. And I owe your son considerably more—he gave me a way to fight. Before I lose my nerve, let’s end this.”

Mabbot said, “Good luck, Mr. Braga,” and with that, we made our way back to the first cavern, running when we could. It was all I could do to keep up with her. I was terrified that the explosion would collapse the tunnels around us.

Once we made it to the entrance, I waded immediately into the pool, but Mabbot was peering back into the tunnels.

“Captain,” I begged, “he did say to hurry, let’s not be caught.”

“That coward,” she whispered. “He’s not going to—”

At that moment the earth shifted beneath us like a rug pulled stiffly. The water at my waist lunged toward the ceiling. A heartbeat later an eruption of hot dust blew Mabbot into the pool. I grabbed her and dove under, scraping our chins and elbows as we struggled through the course and back up into the hulk, which was quiet and dark. I wasn’t sure how long we had been underground and thought for a moment that the sun had set, but emerging onto the beach, I saw a sky gravid with indigo clouds.

The men began to row before we had even seated ourselves, saying, “’Phoon, Captain! Getting blunky since you left. A typhoon for sure.”

“Couldn’t have arranged it better.” Mabbot smiled, tugging on her ears to get the water out.

From the longboat we could see smoke rising over the banks.

As we neared the
Rose
, the distant Barbarian House came into view, and through the drizzle, we saw wisps of grey streaming from her once clean lines. Then, as we watched, it collapsed into a maelstrom of soot. The smoke rose to a morbid column, and I tried to imagine the men who had been swept up in that explosion, hoping too that Braga had made it to a safe distance.

There was no sound but the grunts of the rowers, and the water parting for their oars. As we watched, the smoke and dust was smeared by the wind into a pennant that would be seen for miles in every direction—the Barbarian House gone, Pendleton unseated.

Mabbot was very still as she looked at it, almost prayerful, then I heard her humming a merry reel under her breath as our view was obliterated by swift brushstrokes of rain. Then the
whump
of another explosion reached us, followed by anguished alarm bells, and Mabbot’s song picked up pace. She stood in the little boat and sang, “Row, boys, row, boys!”

Asher had made good on his mission: two wide-bottomed dinghies, their hulls gleaming with black lacquer, were tethered to the
Rose
.

As we came alongside, Mr. Apples called, “Jack ladder for the captain!” He was in a hurry to get us aboard, and I shared the sentiment. What greeted me as I gained the deck, though, was an unwelcome sight: even through the increasingly foul weather, I could see ships between us and the sea, massive, lined for battle and flying the Royal Navy flag.

“See there, Mr. Apples,” Mabbot shouted over the gale. “A land breeze to carry us out, quite considerate.”

“Wouldn’t call a typhoon considerate, ma’am, this wind is slant at best and getting more and more peevish by the minute. And anyway, the door is locked.” He pointed to the blockade. “That’s two first-rate warships and a gunboat, Captain. Ships of the line, and it’s quite a line.”

“We do have the weather gauge,” Mabbot said, “such as it is. And we have our little surprises, don’t we?”

“Only have powder enough for one of the dinghies. The other we’ve doused with oil, but she’ll do nothing more than smoke.”

“It will have to be enough. And your gunmen, Mr. Apples, are they ready for chain shot?”

“You’re not thinking of running them athwart?”

“Do we have a choice?”

Mabbot and Mr. Apples were looking disconsolately at the blockade through the downpour.

“I’ll have to sail the dinghy myself, towing the other,” Mabbot said.

“I forbid it,” Mr. Apples said. “The gunship alone has seventy cannon on a side. They’ll sink those boats soon as they’re in range.”

“In this weather those ships will be heeling and rolling. Hard enough to keep your feet, let alone aim the guns.”

“It’s suicide, Captain.”

“Better lose the boats than the
Rose
. And you can’t do it, Apples; we’ve no chance at all without you at the battery.”

“You didn’t hear me volunteering.”

“With foul wind and cross seas, we can’t set them unmanned on the course and hope they drift to their mark,” said the captain. “We need an able hand. After all I’ve put them through, I’m not about to ask one of the crew to martyr himself—”

“Captain,” I interrupted.

“Wedge, this is no time for jokes, you couldn’t sail a bathtub.”

“No, Captain, look.”

She followed my gaze to where Bai was freeing the stay lines of the first dingy and swinging the boom into position.

Mabbot shouted, “Tsang Ju-long Bai!”

When he looked up, though, she was silent. They regarded each other across the storm-tossed water for a moment, then Bai went back to hoisting the halyard of the mainmast until the dragon-wing filled with a pop. The boat lurched into motion as the storm winds caught it. It tugged on its towline, and the second boat swung in behind it like a swan after its mate.

As the dinghies came alongside and passed us, Mabbot whispered urgently, “Shouldn’t we stop him, Apples?”

“The man hasn’t moved since he lost Feng,” Mr. Apples said quietly. “He’s saved my life a dozen times. By my book, he can do what he pleases.”

The winds picked up, and when the boats slid quickly past the bowsprit, something in Mabbot caught fire. “Make sail and crack on after those boats! Cut the mudhook, we haven’t time!”

“Captain,” Mr. Apples objected. “Without anchor, the typhoon—”

“The anchor won’t help us fly. Right now we need wings.”

“But what course?”

“Crowd the sails and run, Mr. Apples, I want you to put this storm in her bonnet. Bai is going to make a door, and we’re going through it.”

“We’ll be open to raking fire.”

“I’m not going to trade broadsides with three ships of the line, Mr. Apples. Damn it, do you want me to set these sails myself?”

One of the dinghies had already begun to smoke.

“Cut anchor!” Mr. Apples bellowed. “Stations, aloft and set every inch! Ready guns! All hands!”

The gong thrummed and the deck swarmed into action. The fireboats had crossed half the distance between us and the blockade. The smoke from the first was terrible. It danced toward the navy ships, churning with the driven rain into an opaque fog that obscured the middle warship.

The
Rose
gathered way with alarming speed. I had never seen all of her sails drawing on a good day, let alone in the teeth of a storm, and by the look on the faces of the men handling the lines, they hadn’t either. Even when fleeing from Laroche, the topsails had been reefed to keep us from pitching into the swells. Now the sails were as swollen and numerous as the clouds. The masts creaked and moaned. Swift contrary gusts swung around from the lee and drove the masts down toward the water, only to release them to thrash again toward heaven. Despite our careening, we sped toward the blockade. The surf, whipped to foam by our bow, sent a white fountain over the bulwarks and onto the deck.

One seaman held desperately to a royal buntline that had come loose, and the wind beat him against the mast like a dirty rug.

The sound of cannon fire brought all eyes to the boats. The rigging of the first dinghy was ruined at once, and soon the mast collapsed entirely. She sheered off course and drifted, still belching black smoke, wisps of flame occasionally licking across her deck.

Then the paneled sails of the trailing dinghy lifted and were seized by the wind. Bai had leaped from the smoldering boat into the second and was holding its lines like reins as it picked up speed. Only seconds later it was lost in the smoke, though the sounds of cannon fire doubled and trebled.

The guns stilled for a moment, and in the caesura I could hear the bow of the
Rose
scudding against the waves. Then the second dinghy exploded, her frame lit for the briefest moment like a lantern in the gloom.

The wind shifted and the smoke from the first boat parted to reveal a black smoking scar on the stern of the middle warship. Bai had found his target, but the warship was holding her line. The
Rose
was speeding toward a collision. We might as well have been facing a firing squad. Still we galloped toward them. The gunship was the first to fire on us, and I saw the “raking” that had so frightened Mr. Apples. A single cannonball made its way from our bow to our stern and left as much damage as an entire broadside. Ten of our crew were cut down like reeds, two of our cannon tumbled into the sea, and the aft longboat burst into kindling.

Another missile punched through the forecastle and lodged in the foremast with a thud that I could feel in my lungs. Still the winds increased, and the
Rose
was nearly lifted from the water with her speed, sails cracking and popping and the masts bowed. Before I threw myself to the deck for cover, I saw lightning crackling between the masts of the warships we were hurling toward.

Then we entered the furious region within all three ships’ range, and the world was turned upside down.

It seemed we were taking fire from every direction. Mabbot had climbed to the first yardarm of the mizzenmast to bellow her orders, and they made an unholy choir: the wind, the guns, Mabbot, and the thunder.

The storm enveloped us so thoroughly that, despite the howling and biting rain, the world was a washed slate. For a moment I couldn’t see our own deck. Only the cannon fire lit the haze in ghostly blooms. We were moving through the clouds themselves. Then the cannonballs danced across the deck, sending spars pirouetting out over the water. I felt the
Rose
would be taken apart plank by plank.

Then there was a pause in the calamity and Mabbot roared, “It’s open! The gate is open!”

The haze cleared enough to show that the warships were indeed parting. My hope was short-lived, however; I saw that they were maneuvering not to avoid collision but to engage
La Colette
, which had come in behind them from open sea.

“Laroche has joined the fray!” Mabbot shouted, her voice almost jubilant.

Mr. Apples’s erratic course may have baffled the Frenchman for a time, but he must have been trailing close since our last encounter, and our errands had allowed him to catch up at last. The dreaded corvette was indeed coming for us, but, in the confusion of the storm, the warships had already launched a volley against him.

At first I thought it was blind vengeance that prompted Laroche’s reckless advance, but then I remembered his arrangement with Ramsey and the Pendleton coffers emptied into his experimental ship. He must know his sponsor is gone and how little time he has left to prove his worth: only bringing Mabbot to justice could keep the man from debtors’ prison or worse. If another ship brought home the prize, Laroche would be ruined.

“He can’t stand to let the navy have us!” Was it the wind lashing Mabbot’s eyes or was she really laughing? “The
Rose
is the belle of the ball and everyone wants a dance!”

As the navy ships turned in the water, I saw three Chinese warships tacking in from the south to defend their coast from the enigmatic conflict that had already ruined the wharves of the Pearl River. The “gate” we had hoped to speed through had become a viper’s nest, a blind brawl. The sea itself was boiling, and we were the dumpling in the pot. Unholy light lit the heavens. Bullied by the storm, the navy gunship and her wounded sister collided, and their masts became entangled. Still their batteries barked and snarled like dogs in a pit.

The greedy fists of the world were scrambling for dominance, each against all, the screams of the dying drowned by the brute grunts of grenades and close-quarter carronades.

I watched as fishing junks torn from the harbor by the storm broke their spars against the hulls of the approaching Chinese warships that swept into the fight at an angry list with their battle flags burning brightly. The years of kowtowing in their own ports while foreign interests bled their country dry had clearly made them eager to send a barbarian ship to the bottom; their decimated harbor and a convergence of British naval vessels was the excuse they needed. Mabbot was right—the relations here were so precarious that they needed but a nudge to come crashing down.

One English ship had been trapped between its tangled comrades and the crack of the Chinese cannon. Like the story of the man who lost his nose to a hungry crow, the bowsprit of the warship disappeared in the first volley, leaving a ghastly hole rimmed with guttering lines.