Tai-Pan (5 page)

And the things you had to do as a trader, to men and to friends, in order to survive, let alone prosper. Dreadful.

He saw Gordon Chen’s fixed stare on the longboat and wondered what he was thinking. It must be terrible to be a half-caste, he thought. I suppose, if the truth were known, he hates the Tai-Pan too, even though he pretends otherwise. I would . . .

Gordon Chen’s mind was on opium and he was blessing it. Without opium there would be no Hong Kong—and Hong Kong, he thought exultantly, is the most fantastic opportunity for making money I could ever have and the most unbelievable stroke of joss for China.

If there had been no opium, he told himself, there would be no China trade. If there had been no China trade, then the Tai-Pan would never have had money to buy my mother from the brothel and I would never have been born. Opium paid for the house Father gave Mother years ago in Macao. Opium paid for our food and clothes. Opium paid for my schooling and English-speaking tutors and Chinese-speaking tutors, so that now, today, I am the best-educated youth in the Orient.

He glanced across at Horatio Sinclair, who was looking around the beach with a frown. He felt a shaft of envy that Horatio had been sent home to school. He had never been home.

But he pushed away his envy. Home will come later, he promised himself happily. In a few years.

He turned to watch the longboat again. He adored the Tai-Pan. He had never called Struan “Father” and had never been called “my son” by him. In fact, he had spoken to him only twenty or thirty times in his life. But he tried to make his father very proud of him and he always thought of him secretly as “Father.” He blessed him again for selling his mother to Chen Sheng as third wife. My joss has been huge, he thought.

Chen Sheng was compradore of The Noble House, and was almost a father to Gordon Chen. A compradore was the Chinese agent who bought and sold on behalf of a foreign establishment. Every item, large or small, would pass through the compradore’s hands. By custom, on every item he would add a percentage. This became his personal profit. But his earnings depended on the success of his house, and he had to cover bad debts. So he had to be very cautious and clever to become rich.

Ah, Gordon Chen thought, to be as rich as Chen Sheng! Or better still as rich as Jin-qua, Chen Sheng’s uncle. He smiled to himself, finding it amusing that the British had such difficulty with Chinese names. Jin-qua’s real name was Chen-tse Jin Arn, but even the Tai-Pan, who had known Chen-tse Jin Arn for almost thirty years, still could not pronounce the name. So years ago the Tai-Pan had nicknamed him “Jin.” The “qua” was a bad pronunciation of the Chinese word that meant “Mr.”

Gordon Chen knew that Chinese did not mind their nicknames. It only amused them, being another example, to them, of barbarian lack of culture. He remembered years ago as a child he had been watching Chen-tse Jin Arn and Chen Sheng secretly through a hole in the garden wall when they were smoking opium. He had heard them laughing together about His Excellency—how the mandarins in Canton had nicknamed Longstaff “Odious Penis,” which was a joke on his name, and how the Chinese characters for the Cantonese translation had been used on official letters addressed to Longstaff for more than a year—until Mauss had told Longstaff about it and spoiled a wonderful jest.

He looked covertly at Mauss. He respected him for being a merciless teacher and was grateful to him for forcing him to be the best student in the school. But he despised him for his filth, for his stench and for his cruelty.

Gordon Chen had liked the mission school and liked learning and liked being one of the children. But one day he had discovered he was different from the other children. In front of them, Mauss had told him what “bastard” and “illegitimate” and “half-caste” meant. Gordon Chen had fled home in horror. And he had seen his mother clearly for the first time and had despised her for being Chinese.

Then he had learned from her, through his tears, that it was good to be even part Chinese, for the Chinese were the purest race on earth. And he had learned that the Tai-Pan was his father.

“But why do we live here, then? Why is Chen Sheng ‘Father’?”

“Barbarians have only one wife and they don’t marry Chinese, my son,” Kai-sung explained.

“Why?”

“It is their custom. A stupid one. But that is the way they are.”

“I hate the Tai-Pan! I hate him! I hate him!” he had burst out.

His mother had hit him across the face, savagely. She had never struck him before. “Get down on your knees and beg forgiveness!” she had said in rage. “The Tai-Pan is your father. He gave you life. He is my god. He bought me for himself, then blessed me by selling me to Chen Sheng as 
wife.
 Why should Chen Sheng take a woman with an impure two-year-old son as 
wife
 when he could buy a thousand virgins if it wasn’t because the Tai-Pan wanted it so? Why should the Tai-Pan give me property if he didn’t love us? Why should the rent come to me and not to Chen Sheng if the Tai-Pan didn’t order it so? Why should Chen Sheng treat me so well, even in old age, if it wasn’t for the Tai-Pan’s perpetual favo? Why does Chen Sheng treat you like a son, you ungrateful halfwit, if it wasn’t for the Tai-Pan? Go to the temple and kowtow and beg forgiveness. The Tai-Pan gave you life. So love him and honor him and bless him like I do. And if you ever say that again, I’ll turn my face from you forever!”

Gordon Chen smiled to himself. How right Mother was, and how wrong and stupid I was. But not as stupid as the mandarins and the cursed emperor to try to stop the sale of opium. Any fool knows that without it there’s no bullion for teas and silks.

Once he had asked his mother how it was made, but she did not know, nor did anyone in the house. The next day he had asked Mauss, who had told him that opium was the sap—the tears—of a ripened poppy seedpod. “The opium farmer makes a delicate cut in the pod, and from this cut a tear of white liquid seeps, 
hein
? The tear hardens in a few hours and changes from white to dark brown. Then you scrape off the tear and save it and make a new, delicate cut. Then scrape off the new tear and make a new cut. You collect the tears together and mold them into a ball—ten pounds is the usual weight. The best opium comes from Bengal in British India, 
hein
? Or from Malwa. Where’s Malwa, boy?”

“Portuguese India, sir!”

“It 
was
 Portuguese, but now it belongs to the East India Company. They took it to complete their world monopoly of all opium and thus ruin the Portuguese opium traders here in Macao. You make too many mistakes, boy, so get the whip, 
hein
?”

Gordon Chen remembered how he had hated opium that day. But now he blessed it. And he thanked his joss for his father and for Hong Kong. Hong Kong was going to make him rich. Very rich.

“Fortunes are going to be made here,” he said to Horatio.

“Some of the traders will prosper,” Horatio said absently, staring at the approaching longboat. “A few. Trading’s a devilish tricky business.”

“Always thinking of money, Gordon, 
hein
?” Mauss’s voice was rough. “Better you think of your immortal soul and salvation, boy. Money’s not important.”

“Of course, sir.” Gordon Chen hid his amusement at the man’s stupidity.

“The Tai-Pan looks like a mighty prince come to claim his kingdom,” Horatio said, almost to himself.

Mauss looked back at Struan. “Isn’t he, 
hein
?”

The longboat was in the foreshore waves.

“Oars ho!” the bosun shouted, and the crew shipped the oars and slipped over the side and dragged the boat smartly above the surf.

Struan hesitated. Then he leaped off the prow. The moment his seaboots touched the shore he knew that the island was going to be the death of him.

“Good sweet Christ!”

Robb was beside him and saw the sudden pallor. “What’s amiss, Dirk?”

“Nothing.” Struan forced a smile. “Nothing, laddie.” He brushed the sea spray off his forehead and strode up the beach toward the flagpole. By the blood of Christ, he thought, I’ve sweated and planned years to get you, Island, and you’re not going to beat me now. No, by God.

Robb watched him and his slight limp. His foot must be paining him, he thought. He wondered what the ache of half a foot was like. It had happened on the only smuggling voyage Robb had made. In saving Robb’s life when he had been helpless and paralyzed with fear, Struan had been fallen on by the pirates. A musket ball had carried away the outside of his anklebone and two small toes. When the attack had been beaten off, the ship’s doctor had cauterized the wounds and had poured molten pitch over them. Robb could still smell the stench of the burning flesh. But for me, he thought, it would never have happened.

He followed Struan up the beach, consumed with self-disgust.

“Morning, gentlemen,” Struan said as he joined some of the merchants near the flagpole. “Beautiful morning, by God.”

“It be cold, Dirk,” Brock said. “And it be right mannerly of thee to be so prompt.”

“I’m early. His Excellency’s not ashore yet, and the signal gun’s not been fired.”

“Yes, an’ a hour an’ a half late, an’ all arranged twixt you and that weakgutted lackey, I’ll be bound.”

“I’ll thank you, Mr. Brock, not to refer to His Excellency in those terms,” Captain Glessing sputtered.

“An’ I’ll thank you to keep yor opinions to yorself. I’m not in the navy and baint under yor command.” Brock spat neatly. “Better you think about the war yo’re not fighting.”

Glessing’s hand tightened on his sword. “I never thought I’d see the day when the Royal Navy was called on to protect smugglers and pirates. That’s what you are.” He looked across at Struan. “All of you.”

There was a sudden hush and Struan laughed. “His Excellency does na agree with you.”

“We’ve Acts of Parliament, by God, the Navigation Acts. One of them says, ‘Any unlicensed armed ship can be taken as prize by any nation’s navy.’ Is your fleet licensed?”

“Lots of pirates in these waters, Captain Glessing. As you’re aware,” Struan said easily. “We’ve arms to protect oursel’. No more, no less.”

“Opium’s against the law. How many thousand cases have you smuggled into China up the coast against the laws of China and humanity? Three thousand? Twenty thousand?”

“What we do here is well known in all the courts of England.”

“Your ‘trade’ brings dishonor to the flag.”

“You’d better thank God for the trade, for without it England’ll have no tea and no silk, but a universal poverty that’ll tear her very heart out.”

“Right you are, Dirk,” Brock said. Then he turned on Glessing again. “You’d better be getting it through thy head that without merchants there baint no British Empire and no taxes to buy warships and powder.” He looked at Glessing’s immaculate uniform and white knee breeches and white stockings and buckled shoes and cocked hat. “An’ no brass to pay muckles to captain ’em!”

The marines winced and some of the sailors laughed, but very cautiously.

“You’d better thank God for the Royal Navy, by God. Without it there’s no place to merchant in.”

A signal gun from the flagship boomed out. Abruptly, Glessing marched to the flagpole. “Present arms!”

He took out the proclamation and a hush fell over the crowd. Then, when his anger had lessened a little, he began to read: “By order of His Excellency the Honorable William Longstaff, Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria’s Captain Superintendent of Trade in China. In accordance with the document known as the Treaty of Chuenpi, signed on January 20th, this year of Our Lord, by His Excellency on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, and by His Excellency Ti-sen, Plenipotentiary of His Majesty Tao Kuang, Emperor of China, I, Captain Glessing, RN, do hereby take possession of this Island of Hong Kong on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty, her heirs and assigns, in perpetuity without let or hinderance, on this day the 26th of January, year of Our Lord 1841. This island soil is now English soil. God Save the Queen!”

The Union Jack broke clear at the top of the flagpole, and the honor guard of marines fired a volley. Then the cannons roared throughout the fleet and the wind became thick with the tang of gunpowder. Those on the beach gave three cheers for the queen.

Now it’s done, Struan thought. Now we’re committed. Now we can begin. He left the group and went down to the surf, and for the first time he turned his back on the island and looked out into the great harbor at the land beyond: to mainland China, a thousand yards away.

The mainland peninsula was low-lying, with nine squat hills, and jutted into the harbor that hooped around it. It was named “Kau-lung”—“Kowloon” the traders pronounced it—“Nine Dragons.” And to the north lay the limitless and unknown expanse of China.

Struan had read all the books ever written by the three Europeans who had been to China and returned. Marco Polo nearly six hundred years ago, and two Catholic priests who had been permitted in Peking two hundred years ago. The books had revealed almost nothing.

For two hundred years no Europeans had been permitted into China. Once—against the law—Struan had gone a mile inland from the coast up near Swatow when he was selling opium, but the Chinese were hostile and he was alone but for his first mate. It wasn’t the hostility that had turned him back. Just the enormousness of their numbers and the limitlessness of the land.

God’s blood! he thought. We know nothing about the most ancient and the most populated nation on earth. What’s inside?

“Is Longstaff coming ashore?” Robb asked as he joined him.

“No, laddie. His Excellency has more important things to do.”

“What?”

“Things like reading and writing dispatches. And making private agreements with the admiral.”

“To do what?”

“To outlaw the opium trade.”

Robb laughed.

“I’m na joking. That’s why he wanted to see me—with the admiral. He wanted to get my advice on when to issue the order. The admiral said the navy’d have no trouble enforcing it.”

“Good God! Is Longstaff mad?”

“No. Just simple in the head.” Struan lit a cheroot. “I told him to issue the order at four bells.”