Tai-Pan

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

All that day the north wind increased. By nightfall Queen’s Town was as prepared as it would ever be. Windows were shuttered and doors jammed and those who had had the foresight to dig cellars blessed their joss. Those with makeshift or temporary habitations sought stronger buildings. But few buildings were strong—except in Happy Valley. And few men were prepared to risk the night gases even though they had read today’s

Oriental Times about a cure for malaria. Today there was no cinchona to be had.

All ships were battened down and every available anchor was bedded deeply. The ships were eased as far apart as possible to give maximum swinging room when the wind would back or veer.

But there were some who said that because this wind was constant from the north, it could not possibly herald a typhoon. Never had anyone known the typhoon to blow from the north alone. A typhoon wind veered or backed constantly.

Even Struan was inclined to agree. Never had the barometer stayed so high. And never had there been a typhoon without the barometer’s dropping.

Drizzle came at nightfall from a lowering ceiling and brought relief from the heat.

Struan had weighed the dangers carefully. If he had had only himself to worry about, he would have put to sea in

China Cloud and run south until the wind backed or veered. Then he would have taken the safest course and escaped. But some instinct he did not understand told him not to risk the sea. Instead, he moved May-may and Yin-hsi and Ah Sam and Lim Din to the vast abandoned factory in Happy Valley and put them in his quarters on the third floor. He felt that the rain and the wind would blow away the night gases. May-may would be safer protected by brick and stone than on the sea or in a hole in the ground, and that was all that counted.

Culum had thanked Struan for the offer of a berth in the factory but had said that he preferred to bring Tess into the harbor master’s office. It was a low, granite building, and Glessing had set aside space for Culum and Tess in the quarters that were part of the building.

Struan had told them what had happened on the knoll and that a peace of sorts had been made. And all day while he was preparing against a typhoon that might never come, he brooded over the violence of man.

“What’s the matter, Husband?” May-may had asked.

“I dinna ken. Brock, mysel’, typhoon—I dinna ken. Maybe the cloud ceiling’s too low.”

“I’ll tell you wat’s wrong. You think too much about wat happened—and worse, you worry about wat could possible have happened. Huh! Foolishness! Be Chinese! I order you! Past is past. A peace is made with Brock! Dinna waste time moping like constipate hen. Eat some foods and drink some tea and make love to Yin-hsi.”

She laughed and called Yin-hsi, who hurried across the huge bedroom and sat on the bed and held her hand. “Look at her, by God! I’ve already give her a good talking-to.”

He grinned and felt easier.

“That’s better,” she said. “I think of you all time, never mind. Yin-hsi is in the room next door alone. She waits dutifully all night.”

“Get on with you, lassie.” He chuckled, and May-may spoke rapidly in Chinese to Yin-hsi. Yin-hsi was all attention and then she clapped her hands elatedly and beamed at Struan, then hurried out.

“What did you say, May-may?” he asked suspiciously.

“I tell her how you make love. And how to make you fantastical excited. And na to be afraid when you cry out at the ending.”

“Devil take you! Have I nae privacy at all?”

“Tai-tai knows wat’s best for her losing-temper little boy. Yin-hsi’s waiting for you now.”

“What?”

“Yin-hsi. I told her to get ready. Love in the evening is pleasant, never mind. Have you forgotten?”

Struan grunted and walked for the door. “Thank you kindly, but I’m busy.” He went downstairs and suddenly found that he was feeling much better. Aye, it was nonsense to worry about the past. And again he blessed his joss for May-may.

Brock had had the broken foremast of the

White Witch unstepped and lashed alongside for safety. All the broken spars and twisted rigging had been sorted out and the ship battened down. He had put three anchors forward and a canvas storm anchor aft to keep her head to wind.

All day he had felt dulled. His head and chest ached, and he knew that his dreams would be bad tonight. He would have liked to get drunk, to lose himself. But he knew that there was danger coming. He took a last turn around the rain-swept deck with a lantern, then went below to check on Liza and Lillibet.

“Here’s thy tea, luv,” Liza said. “Best get into dry clothes. They be ready for thee.” She pointed at the bunk and at the sea coat and trousers and sea hat and boots.

“Thanks, luv.” He sat at the table and drank the tea.

“Da’,” Lillibet said, “will you play game with me?” And when Brock did not answer, for he had not heard her, she tugged at his wet coat. “Da’, will you please play a game with me?”

“Leave thy father be,” Liza said. “I be playin’ with thee.”

She took Lillibet into the next cabin and thanked God that there was peace between her man and Struan. Brock had told her what had occurred, and she thanked God for answering her prayers. The wind be miracle, she told herself. Now all that he needed be patience. He be comin’ round to bless Tess. Liza asked God to guard Tess and Culum and the ship and all of them, then sat down and began to play a game of noughts and crosses with Lillibet.

This afternoon Gorth’s coffin had been put into a cutter. Liza and Brock had gone into deep water and Brock had said the funeral service. When he finished, he had cursed his son and cast the coffin into the deep. They had returned to the

White Witch and Brock had gone into his sea cabin and bolted the door, and he had wept for his son and for his daughter. He wept for the first time as a man, and the joy of life had gone out of him.

All night the wind and the rain gradually worsened. With the coming of dawn the downpour was strong but not fearsome and the sea high but not threatening.

Brock had slept in his clothes, and he came on deck blear-eyed. He checked the barometer. Still 29.8 inches, steady. He rapped it with a knuckle but the reading did not change.

“Morning, sir,” Pennyworth said.

Brock nodded apathetically.

“It just be a rainstorm, I’m thinking,” Pennyworth said, perturbed by Brock’s lackluster manner.

Brock peered at the sea and sky. The cloud blanket was only a few hundred feet away and hid the mountains of the island and the Peak, but this too was not unusual.

Brock forced himself to walk forward and check the anchor hawsers. They were firm: three anchors and three hawsers as thick as a man’s thigh. Enough to hold in any storm, he thought. But this did not please him. He felt nothing.

China Cloud was riding neat and sleek in the harbor, the watch cowering in the lee of the quarterdeck. All the other ships were riding without trouble, the huge flagship dominating the harbor. A few late-coming sampans and junks were searching for moorings beside the floating village in the lee shore of a small cove near Glessing’s Point.

Brock went below, and Pennyworth and the rest of the watch were greatly relieved to have him gone.

“He’s aged since yesterday,” Pennyworth said. “He looks like he’s dying on his feet.”

In the dawn light, Struan was checking the rough shutters on the first floor. He went downstairs to the main floor and checked the others. He read the barometer: 29.8 and steady.

“By the gods!” he said, and his voice rattled around the buildings. “Either begin to drop or finish the godrotting rain and let’s have done with it.”

“Wat, Tai-Pan?” May-may called down from the landing.

She looked minute and lovely. “Nothing, lassie. Go back to bed,” he said.

May-may was listening to the rain pattering and wished she was in Macao where the sound of the rain on the roof would be sweet. “I dinna like this rain,” she said. “I hope the children are all right. I miss them very much.”

“Aye. Go back to bed, there’s a good lassie. I’m going outside for a while.”

She waved jauntily. “You be careful, now.” Struan pulled on his heavy sea coat and went outside. Now the rain was slanting. It had not increased in the last hour. In fact, he thought, it seemed to be lessening. The clouds were very low. He studied the lie of

China Cloud. She’s pretty and safe, he told himself.

He went back and checked the barometer. No change. He ate a good breakfast and prepared to leave again. “Up! Down! Why you so unpatient? Where you go now, heya?” May-may asked.

“The harbor master’s office. I want to see if Culum’s all right. Dinna on any account go out or open any of the windows or doors, Supreme Lady Tai-tai or nae Supreme Lady Tai-tai.”

“Yes, Husband.” May-may kissed him. Queen’s Road was deeply puddled and almost empty. But the wind and the rain felt bracing, and it was better than being shut up in the box of the factory. It was just like a spring nor’easter in England, he thought; nae, na as strong as that.

He entered the harbor master’s office and shook the rain off.

Glessing got up from his desk. “Morning. Strange storm, isn’t it? Care for tea?” He motioned to a chair. “Suppose you’re looking for Culum and Mrs. Struan, They’ve gone to early service.”

“Eh?”

“They’ll be back any minute. It’s Sunday.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten.”

Glessing poured the tea from a huge pot, then put it back on the side of the brazier. The room was large and filled with charts. A mast came through the raftered ceiling, and beside it was a hatch. Signal flags were in neat cubicles, muskets in racks, and the whole room was tidy and shipshape. “What’s your opinion of the storm?”

“If it’s a typhoon, then we’re dead in its path. That’s the only answer. If the wind does na back or veer, thea the vortex’ll pass over us.”

“God help us if you’re right.”

“Aye.”

“Once I got caught in a typhoon off Formosa. Never want to be in a sea like that again, and we weren’t anywhere near the vortex. If there is such a thing.”

A gust of rain-heavy wind rattled the storm shutters. They watched the wind indicator. Still inexorably north.

Glessing put down his teacup. “I’m in your debt, Mr. Struan. I got a letter the day before yesterday from Mary. She told me how kind you were—you and Culum. Particularly you. She sounds very much better.”

“I saw her just before I left. She certainly was ten times better than the first time I saw her.”

“She says she’ll be released in two months. That you told the Papist you’d accept responsibility for her. Of course, that’s up to me now.”

“As you wish. It’s only a formality.” Struan wondered what Glessing would do when he found out the truth about Mary. Of course he had to find out; how could May-may believe that he would na?

“Did the doctor say what her trouble was?”

“A stomach disorder.”

“That’s what she wrote. Again, thanks.” Glessing moved a chart on his desk and wiped a tea stain off the teak. “Culum mentioned that you were Royal Navy as a lad. At Trafalgar. Hope you don’t mind my asking, but my father had the honor of serving there too. I was wondering what ship you were in. He was flag lieutenant to Admiral Lord Collingwood, in—”

“In

Royal Sovereign,” Struan said for him. “Aye. I was aboard.”

“By Jove!” was all that Glessing could splutter.

Struan had kept this private from Glessing deliberately, always knowing that he had another ace to play should he need it to bring him to his side. “Aye. Of course, I dinna remember your father—I was a powder monkey and scared out of my wits. But the admiral was aboard and I was in

Royal Sovereign.”

“By Jove,” Glessing repeated. He had seen the 110-gun ship of the line off Spithead once as a boy. “A ship’s company of eight hundred and thirty-six and the future Tai-Pan of The Noble House. No wonder we won, by God!”

“Thank you,” Struan said. “But I had little to do with the battle.”

“By gad, Tai-Pan—if I may call you that—I think this is wonderful. I’m very glad. Yes, I am. My word! Used to hate your guts, as you know. Don’t any more. I still think my decision was right at the Battle of Chuenpi, but I realize now that that cursed nitheaded misbegotten sod Longstaff was right when he said if I’d been you or you’d been me our attitudes would have been the same.”

“What’re you riled at Longstaff for?”

Glessing’s face lost its warmth. “Bloody sod had the impertinence to interfere in naval affairs! He ‘suggested’ to the admiral that I be sent home! Thank God the admiral’s Royal Navy and the bugger’s sacked! And while we’re on the subject of fools, I’m sure you’ve read last night’s paper. That stupid bastard Cunnington! How dare he say Hong Kong’s a godforsaken rock with hardly a house on’t! Absolute bloody nerve! Best harbor on earth! How dare he say we don’t know anything about the sea?”

Struan remembered the first day—good Lord, was that only six-odd months ago?—and he knew that he had been right. Glessing might go down with Hong Kong, but he would fight to the death to protect Glessing’s Point. “Perhaps the new man, Whalen, will agree with Cunnington.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it. Or the admiral. He nearly had apoplexy when he read it. Stands to reason. Look at the fleet. Riding snug and safe as in Portsmouth harbor. Where the devil’d we be a day like today without Hong Kong? Good sweet God! I’d be frightened to death if I was anchored at Macao. Got to have Hong Kong and that’s the end to it. Even that idiot general’s seen the light for once and agrees absolutely,” and he ranted on, damning Cunnington and Longstaff to Struan’s amusement.

The door opened and a flurry of wind and rain rustled the charts. Culum and Tess came in, their spirits high in spite of the weather. “Oh, hello, Tai-Pan,” Culum said. “Can we have tea, Glessing old boy? We said a prayer in your honor!”

“Thanks.” Glessing motioned at the iron pot on the coal stove. “Help yourself.”

Tess curtsied to Struan and took off her sodden cloak. “Morning, Tai-Pan.”

“You’re lovely today, Mrs. Struan,” he said.

She blushed and busied herself pouring the tea.

“You two look happy enough,” Struan said.

“Yes, we are,” Culum said. “We’ve given thanks to God. And for sending the change of wind.”

“Will you na change your mind, lad? Come over to the residence?”

“No, thanks, we’re quite safe here.”

Struan noticed a small jeweled silver box dangling from Culum’s watch chain. “What’s that, Culum?”

“A keepsake. Tess gave it to me.” The little box contained Brock’s twenty sovereigns now, and Culum felt guilty again that he had never told Tess of their significance. He had put them into the box after he and Tess had come ashore off

White Witch the last time: to remind him about Tyler Brock—that Brock hadn’t been fair, hadn’t given him the chance to tell his side.

“It was my grandma’s. It’s not much of a wedding gift,” Tess told Struan. “But with no dowry and all, beggars can’t be pickers.”

“Dinna worry about that, lass. You’re part of The Noble House. When do you move into

your house?”

“In three weeks,” Culum and Tess said together, and they laughed, happy again.

“Good. We’ll do the day proud. Well, see you all later.”

“Look at that fool, Tai-Pan!” Glessing said. He was training his telescope through a porthole at a lorcha barreling into the east channel, sails reefed.

“What the devil’s he doing? Nae day to be out there,” Struan said.

“With your permission, Mr. Struan, I’ll signal her to tie up to your wharf in Happy Valley. She’ll have trouble anchoring in the Roads. And your wharf’s clear.”

“Aye, with pleasure. Who is she?”

“Naval lorcha. Flying the deputy captain superintendent’s pennant.” He snapped his telescope shut. “Her captain needs his head examined to leave Macao in this weather. Or Mr. Monsey’s in a devil of a hurry. What’s your evaluation of that?”

Struan grinned. “I’m no crystal gazer, Captain Glessing.”

Glessing gave the necessary orders to a seaman, who promptly bound the signal flags to the halyard. He opened the ceiling hatch. Rain sprinkled them as the flags were run up.

“Where’s Longstaff?” Struan asked.

“Aboard the flagship,” Glessing said. “Must confess I’d be happier afloat myself.”

“I wouldn’t,” Culum said.

“Oh dear, no,” Tess added.

Struan finished his tea. “Well, I’ll be off. You know where I am if I’m needed.”

“Baint—I mean isn’t that dangerous, Tai-Pan?” Tess asked. “The Happy Valley fever and all? Staying there?”

“The wind and the rain’ll beat down any poison gases,” Struan said with a confidence he did not feel.

“Don’t forget, Tess, there’s some cinchona left, and we’ll soon have plenty,” Culum said. “Tai-Pan, I think the new venture is wonderful. A service to all mankind.”

Struan had told Culum about his arrangement with Cooper before it had been printed. He had also encouraged Culum to spend time with the American; the more he thought about a joining of Cooper and Culum, the more he liked the idea. “Jeff’s very smart, lad. You’ll like working with him.” He pulled on his rain cloak. “Well, I’ll be off. Listen, you two. Dinna worry about Brock. Dinna worry about your father, lass. I’m sure he’ll come around if you give him time. Just give him time.”

“I hope so,” Tess said. “Oh, I hope so.”

On his way out, Struan stopped at the barometer. “Good sweet Jesus! It’s down to 29.5 inches!”

Glessing looked at the time anxiously. It was almost ten o’clock. “That’s damn near half an inch in half an hour.” He made a notation on a pressure chart and followed Struan, who had run outside.

A quarter of the eastern horizon was black, and there seemed to be no division between sea and sky. The wind was fiercer, gusty, still dead-north, and the rain was heavier.

“There she is, all right,” Struan said tensely. “Batten down for your life.” He began sprinting along Queen’s Road toward Happy Valley.

“Inside! Culum, Tess!” Glessing ordered. He slammed the door and bolted it. “Whatever you do, don’t open any doors until further orders.” He pulled the porthole covers over the storm windows and checked all the fastenings, and he realized that Struan was right. The vortex was going to pass directly over them. “I’m very glad you’ve made peace with your father, Culum. Now, I think, some breakfast,” he said calming them. “Mrs. Struan, perhaps you’d supervise?”