Mandarin-Gold (29 page)

Gunn walked across the deck to the mandarin. It was never wise to run when Orientals could see you; they invariably associated unseemly haste with hirelings or alarm. Mackereth followed to translate.

'He says he esteems the friendliness of your most honourable offer.' said Mackereth. 'But he recognizes the ship. Also, he knows the captain. He thinks he will make contact there first, lest the honourable captain be offended. As he says, dealers come in numbers, like a gathering of the clouds.'

'Tell him we can only make this offer because then our holds will be empty, and we wish to return to Macao.'

'He knows that is a lie,' said Mackereth disapprovingly. 'He has looked into the hatches. He sees you have at least another two hundred to go. He means to play us against the
Bosphorus.'

'Damn him,' said Gunn bitterly. Ferguson would undercut him until they were both giving the mud away. The
Bosphorus
was about two hundred yards away now, and turning in a wide sweep. Gunn could hear the shouted commands; the sails cracked like dry bones breaking as the wind left them. She sailed within twenty yards of the
Hesperides
and then her anchors went down, fore and aft. He made out Ferguson in the wheelhouse, voice trumpet at his mouth.

Sampans were now bobbing against the shining tarred hull of the
Bosphorus.
Chinese officials began to climb up the rope ladder to the deck. There was a hurried consultation. Ferguson shouted back: 'Eight dollars, eh? Well,
five's
my going rate. Beat that if you can.'

'What will you do?'Mackereth asked Gunn.

'Nothing,' interrupted MacPherson bitterly. 'If we stay here, he'll only force us down, whatever price we quote. If we head north, he'll follow us or overtake us. That clipper can beat anything afloat. She is also probably carrying twice as much mud as us, anyway. We are wasting our time taking them on.'

'What, leaving us, doctor? Why so soon? We will just have to follow you, wherever you go. And, by God, we'll beat you whenever you stop!'

As he spoke, Gunn remembered the Parsee's words to him in that quiet room, overlooking the Praya Grande.

Gold hath been the ruin of many.
How ironic that other men's gold and power and prosperity should crush him before he could accumulate enough to squeeze others!

'Your master Jardine has declared war on us,' he admitted to Ferguson. 'You may have won the first battle, but one battle is not a war.'

'We'll take you on any time, doctor!' roared Ferguson triumphantly. 'You're not the first to try this, remember. You will learn like the others.'

The
Hesperides'
anchor chains were coming up, screaming through the hawse-holes. Then wind took her sails and she moved forward slowly, turning to the north. Behind them, Gunn could hear Ferguson shouting orders to his crew. They were going to be tailed up the coast. Ferguson would defeat him by his speed and the capital behind him.

Gunn went down into his cabin and sat on his bunk, thinking. It would be dark within three hours. Then he could head out to sea, and wait for dusk, and with all lights doused, he could head north under every sail. To confuse Ferguson, he could lower a boat with a fixed sail and a lantern at the top of the mast. Ferguson might follow the light, or he might not. It was not a very good deception, but it was the only way he could think of delaying them. He called Fernandes to his cabin and asked his opinion.

'It will not work, doctor,' Fernandes said at once. 'Ferguson is one of their best clipper captains. He will simply lower a longboat and row after the light. When he finds you've tricked him, he will guess we have gone north because there is nothing to go south for. And then he will beat up the coast himself. There is a half moon tonight. He would catch, us by midnight.'

'What do
you
suggest, then?'

'I have nothing to suggest, doctor. You are fighting a company so big they are like an iceberg. Only the tip is showing. The real power and weight and muscle is hidden.'

'You're a defeatist,' said Gunn. ‘If Jardine and Matheson had listened to you they would have achieved nothing. There
must
be a way of putting him off the scent. And, by the devil, I have thought of it. Have we any gunpowder?'

'Of course. But you're not suggesting we fire on them?'

'I'm suggesting nothing,’ said Gunn. 'I'm asking questions. And the first question is — what if we put a charge against his rudder and blow it off?'

'Well, he couldn't follow us then, obviously. Not until they had repaired it. But how do you propose to do this?' I

'Those devices the Chinese used when the
Andromache
and
Imogene
wanted to sail up to Canton. Those barrels of gunpowder that floated off in the river, set to explode when anything touched them.'

'You will want a detonator,' said Fernandes. 'The Chinese use a glass tube of acid.'

'I have a dozen test-tubes in my medical supplies. And sulphuric acid. Make me up a charge of gunpowder, in some waterproof container, and I'll provide the detonator.'

'How will you carry it over to the
Bosphorus?'

'Swim. You wrap the whole thing in some tarpaulin to keep it dry, then tie it on a wood raft and I'll push it through the water. It's calm as a pond. Then we'll put on lots of lights, and swing round. He'll turn, too, his rudder will crush the tube, and — bang — he's rudderless. Then we sail north on our own to sell our mud.'

'Right. So go and make up that charge. We'll cruise in a circle until dusk, but not far enough away to make them come after us. They'll think we are seeking to anchor here.'

Fernandes hovered uneasily in the doorway like a fat indecisive moth.

'The sea here is full of shovel-nosed sharks,' he said.'

'So is the land!' retorted Gunn. 'Why do difficulties always argue themselves most eloquently? I am not asking
you
to swim with the charge, man.
I
will swim.'

'Yes, sir,' said Fernandes, and went out along the deck and down the companionway to the hold where the gunpowder was kept.-

Gunn unlocked his medicine chest, took out a bottle of sulphuric acid and a test-tube, filled the tube, stopped it, and propped it on the top of his locker. A shadow darkened the doorway. MacPherson came into his cabin.

'Fernandes says you are planning to blow the rudder off the
Bosphorus?'

'Damn Fernandes,' said MacPherson. 'Ling Fai says they're man-eaters. The locals won't dive here for pearls or anything else because of them. These sharks can skin a man within seconds of diving in the water.'

'You can help me.'

'I'm not swimming with you,' replied MacPherson quickly. .

'I'm not asking you to. I'm only going to ask you to throw a chunk of meat overboard when I set off, for the sharks to attack. That should give me five minutes to do my job. Now, what about Ferguson? What's he doing?'

'Watching us through a glass, as we are watching him.'

'Good. Keep turning until dark, then drop anchors. At the same time, lower the longboat. The noise of the anchor chains should cover it going into the water.

'Get in with some of the crew. Take Mackereth — and start shouting at each other. That will draw their attention. Then drop the meat.'

MacPherson went out and along the deck. Slowly, heat deserted the day, and the sun sank down into the milky evening sea. In the few moments of tropical dusk, the whole coast glowed in a green ethereal light. Then it was dark.

Gunn put out his hands and held her slim body. She had been crying; her face felt damp and soft with tears. She seemed so forlorn, so appealing, that he wanted her then; not just physically, but to know she was close, that he could reach out and feel her, warm and reassuring. But it was wrong to have the woman who belonged to his friend. Yet
did
Ling Fai belong to MacPherson? Could anyone belong to anyone else? Once he had thought that Marion belonged to him. Were we not all cast in the image of God, free to make or break alliances and associations?

'I want you, too, Ling Fai.' But ‘you are MacPherson's woman.'

'Ling Fai not anyone's woman. She is her own woman. And if one man can love many women, why not one woman love two men? Ling Fai can. So let her wish you good happiness. As we say, may favourable winds and friendly tides help you. Understanding?

'Yes. Understanding.'’

She went out, and Gunn stood watching the open doorway and the purple dusk deepening beyond it, hoping she would return, but she did not. He took off his shirt, trousers, and shoes, and wearing only his drawers, rummaged in his locker for a length of thin manilla rope, and wound this in treble thickness around his waist.

From the shore he could hear music thinned by distance and the night; the wail of flutes, the boom of beaten gongs. Lanterns flickered along the beach, and up in the hills. Both ships rode easily at anchor, and mist came rolling out over the sea. Soon it blurred the outline of the
Bosphorus,
her masts and rigging. Within minutes, her lights were only dim haloes in a pale fog. MacPherson came into his cabin.

'Ready when you are,' he announced. ‘The longboat has been lowered over the port side, and the cooks have a pig carcase ready to throw overboard.'

'I'm waiting for the charge,' said Gunn.

'Here it is,' said Fernandes from the outer darkness. The three men crowded into the cabin. Fernandes put down a small rum barrel on the table. The top was covered by a square of canvas tied by a rope, with two loops, one on each side of the barrel.

'I'll fill a second tube,' said Gunn. 'Just to be sure.' He did so and carefully pushed in the rubber stopper.

'I'll leave this on top of the powder. The acid will eat through the rubber in half an hour and set it off, in case the other one fails.'

As Gunn turned down the wick of the, cabin oil lamp, he saw his face in the mirror, hair dark and long, skin pale from the strain of what he was about to undertake. He could hardly recognize the face that had looked back at him from the mirror of his cabin in the
Trelawney.
He had been a boy then. And what was he now? A privateer? A physician? A merchant? Or was he just at last a man?

He walked out along the still-warm deck. The raft lay in the longboat, about four feet square, planks nailed together, with a rope tacked around the edge. He climbed down the ladder, and lifted the raft silently into the sea. Fernandes lowered the powder barrel at the end of a rope. Gunn put it on the raft, then went over the side himself into the warm water. As he did so, Mackereth's face loomed out of the darkness above him, like a white, frightened melon.

'May the Lord go with you,' he whispered hoarsely.

'Certainly no-one else is coming,' replied Gunn, and pushing the raft with outstretched arms, he began to swim.

From sea level, the hull of the
Hesperides
soared up like a black cliff. He saw, the dim lights of the
Bosphorus
and struck out for them. Behind him, he heard a splash as the pig carcase went into the sea, and he hoped the sharks had wind of it before they had wind of him. Then he heard a creak of oars and MacPherson shouting.

'I tell you, doctor, you're mad to think you can beat them at their own game! There's .only one end to this. You
must
know that.'

'I disagree,' replied Mackereth, his voice slurred with drink. 'The doctor is in command. The Lord is working in him!'

Gunn swam on. Someone shouted from the stern of the
Bosphorus.

'Ahoy, there! Who are you?'

'We are from the
'Hesperides,'
MacPherson shouted back. 'Taking an easy row! All's well.'