Gai-Jin (101 page)

“Perhaps we give these fools too much importance,” Yoshi said, pretending contempt. His eyes narrowed as, over Ogama’s shoulder, he saw Basuhiro and some guards come around the far corner of the mean, puddled alley at a run. He looked back at Ogama. “Why not just put their heads on spikes here? Why give them the honor of a sign? Those who we want to know will know soon enough—and be chastened.
Neh?”

Ogama was pleased with the diplomatic solution. “Excellent. I agree. Let us meet at dusk an—” He stopped as he noticed Basuhiro hurrying up to them, sweating and out of breath. He went to meet him.

“Courier from Shimonoseki, Sire,” Basuhiro panted.

Ogama’s face became a mask. He took the scroll and moved nearer to one of the torches. All eyes were on him as he opened it—Basuhiro politely holding an umbrella over him.

The message was from the Captain commanding the Straits and dated eight days ago, couriered express, day and night, as highest priority:

Death to all gai-jin, Ogama wanted to scream, blind with rage that a whole fleet had been within his grasp, like Katsumata, but had escaped vengeance—like Katsumata. Flecks of foam collected at the corners of his lips. “Prepare new instructions: Engage and destroy any and all enemy warships.”

Basuhiro, still trying to catch his breath, said, “May I suggest, Sire, you consider ‘if more than four at any one time.’ You have always wanted to maintain surprise.”

Ogama wiped his mouth and nodded, his heart pumping at the thought of so many ships he could have destroyed. The rain had increased and was drumming on the umbrella. Beyond Basuhiro he saw Yoshi and the other officers waiting, watching him, and he weighed whether to treat Yoshi as enemy or ally, the implications of the fleet, the arrogance, and his own impotence swamping him. “Yoshi-dono!” He beckoned him and, with Basuhiro, moved further into private. “Read it, please.”

Yoshi read rapidly. In spite of his control the color left his face. “Is the fleet heading up the inland sea for Osaka? Or will they turn south for Yokohama?”

“South or not, the next warships in my waters get blown out of my waters! Basuhiro, send men at once to Osaka an—”

“Wait, Ogama-dono,” Yoshi said quickly, wanting time to think. “Basuhiro, what is your counsel?”

The little man said at once, “Sire, for the moment I presume it is Osaka and we should, together, prepare at once to defend it. I have already sent spies urgently to discover the fleet’s course as best I can.”

“Good.” Ogama shakily wiped rain out of his face. “Their whole fleet in my Straits … I should have been there.”

Basuhiro said, “It is more important for you to guard the Emperor against his enemies, Sire, and your commander was correct not to fire on the single ship. Surely it was a decoy to smell out your strength. He was right not to give away your defenses. Now the trap is baited should you wish to close it. Because only one enemy warship sneaked back and bombarded some easy positions and left hastily, I surmise their fleet commander was afraid, was not prepared to attack or land troops to start the war that we will end.”

“Yes, we will. A ruse? I agree. Yoshi-dono,” Ogama said with finality, “we should have done with it and start the war. A surprise attack on Yokohama, if they land at Osaka or not.”

Yoshi could not answer at once, almost sick with a sudden apprehension
that he tried to hide. Eight warships? That’s four more than sailed to China, so the gai-jin have reinforced their fleet. Why? To retaliate for the Satsuma murders, but more particularly, Ogama’s attacks on their shipping. And they will do it as in China. The gai-jin ship was sunk in the Taiwan Straits, but they decimated China’s coast hundreds of leagues away.

What is their easiest target in Nippon?
Yedo
.

Has Ogama realized this and his secret plan is just to provoke the gai-jin? If I were the gai-jin leader I would destroy Yedo. They do not know it but Yedo is indivisible from our Shōgunate. If Yedo ends, the Toranaga Shōgunate ends and then the Land of the Gods is open to rape.

Therefore this will be prevented at all costs
.

Think! How to bottle the gai-jin, and Ogama, whose answer is to put our heads on their block—not his. “I agree with your wise counselor, we should prepare to defend Osaka,” he began, his stomach churning. Then his anxiety for the safety of Yedo bubbled over. “Whether Osaka now or later, a war fleet has returned. Unless we are very careful war is inevitable.”

“Enough of being careful.” Ogama leaned closer. “I say whether there’s landing at Osaka or not, we excise the boil on our balls and exterminate Yokohama. Now! If you will not, so sorry, I will.”

SATURDAY, 29TH NOVEMBER
:

“We passed the fleet two days back, Mr. Malcolm, Jamie,” the clipper captain said genially, hiding his shock at the change in Malcolm, whom he had known since birth and had laughed and drunk with barely three months ago in Hong Kong—the drawn sallow features, strange haunted eyes, the sticks he needed to walk or even to stand with. “We were under full sail with a Force Six aft and going like the clappers, they were riding it leisurely, wise, for they surely wouldn’t want to lose any of the coaling barges they towed.”

His name was Sheeling and he had just come ashore from his ship,
Dancing Cloud
, her arrival unexpected. He was forty-two, a tall, bearded, weather-beaten man, twenty-eight years with the Noble House. “We just saluted them and kept going.”

“Tea, Captain?” McFay asked, automatically pouring, knowing from long experience this was his preferred drink. During a voyage he always drank it ladened with sugar and condensed milk, day or night. They were in Malcolm’s suite at the big table and, like the tai-pan, Jamie was hardly listening, his eyes also on the sealed mail pouch, embossed with the Noble House crest, under Sheeling’s left arm.

Instead of a left hand Sheeling had a hook. When he was a midshipman on a voyage along the Yangtze River trading opium, pirates of the White Lotus fleet had surrounded their lorcha and in the fight his hand had been cut off. Afterwards he had been commended for his gallantry. His beloved idol, Dirk Struan, had brought him back from the brink, then put him with the fleet’s chief captain, Orlov the Hunchback, with orders to teach him all he knew.

“Ta’,” Sheeling said with a smile, and took a large swallow. “Excellent, Jamie! Of course I’d prefer a large whisky, as you know, but that’ll have to wait until Honolulu—I plan to leave right smartly, just came t—”

“Honolulu?” Struan and Jamie said, almost in the same breath. This was not a normal call for their clippers racing across the Pacific for San Francisco, then to hurry back again.

“What’s your cargo?” Malcolm said, almost adding “Uncle Sheeley,” the name he had used in the good days of his youth.

“The usual, tea and spices for ’Frisco, but I’ve orders to first deliver mail to our agents in Hawaii.”

“Mother’s orders?”

Sheeling nodded and his grey eyes looked back at Malcolm pleasantly. He had heard the undercurrent and knew part of the problem existing between mother and son—Malcolm’s engagement and her opposition the private talk of Hong Kong—but was under strict instructions not to mention it.

“How is business there, in Hawaii?” Malcolm asked, a new shaft of anxiety going through him. “Did she say?”

“No, Mrs. Struan just ordered me to stop there.”

A gust rattled the office shutters. They glanced out of the window. In the bay the three rake-masted clipper was at anchor, taking the swell prettily, her sails ready to be hoisted again, soon to hurtle seawards and ride the wild winds or good winds or bad, whatever that lay ahead. The three men were filled like sails with pride and Sheeling felt warmed that he ruled such a queen of the sea. He turned his attention back to Malcolm and absently scratched an itch on his neck with his hook. “I was ordered here for the same reason: mail!” He gave him the pouch. “May I have a receipt, please?”

“Of course.” Malcolm nodded to Jamie who began to write it out. “What’s the latest from Hong Kong?”

“I’d say most would be in the pouch, but I’ve brought the latest papers, both Hong Kong’s and London’s—I left the bundle in your office downstairs.” Sheeling gulped the tea, anxious to be on his way. This would be his fourth Hawaiian visit over the years and he knew the beauty of their girls and their rare, joy-filled loving nature, money hardly a consideration, so unlike Hong Kong, Shanghai or anywhere else he had ever been. This time I’ll buy some land, secretly. Different name. It’s Hawaii for me next year when I retire, that’s where I’m going and no one any the wiser. The thought of sailing off for good, of leaving his wife, an accomplished nag, and rapacious children in London, Daddy buy me this, Daddy buy me that—not that he saw them often—pleased him.

“I meant local news in Hong Kong,” Struan was saying.

“Oh. Well, first your family’s in fine fettle—Mrs. Struan, your brother and sisters—though young Duncan had another bad cold when I left. As to Hong Kong, the races are as good as ever, so’s the food, Mrs. Fortheringill’s is still booming in spite of a recession, the Noble House stays on course as you’d know better than me, along with the usual rumors that all’s not well, probably spread by the Brocks, but that’s just more of the usual and never changes.” He got up. “Thank you kindly, I best be going, must catch the tide.”

“Won’t you at least stay for lunch?”

“No, thanks, I’d better be off an—”

“What rumors?” Malcolm said harshly.

“Nothing worth repeating, Mr. Malcolm.”

“Why don’t you call me tai-pan like everyone else?” Malcolm said irritably, fear of what might be in the pouch eating him. “I am, aren’t I?”

Sheeling’s expression did not change, he liked him and admired him and was sorry for the burden he now carried. “Yes, you are, and you’re right, it’s time I stopped ‘Mr. Malcolm.’ But, begging your pardon, your father said exactly the same to me after he became tai-pan, a few days after the typhoon killed the … killed the tai-pan, Mr. Dirk. As you know he was very special to me, and I asked my captain, Captain Orlov, if I could talk to Mr. Culum and he said it was all right. So I said to your father that I’d always called Mr. Dirk tai-pan and as a special favor, could I just call him sir, or Mr. Struan. He said I could. It was a special favor. Could th—”

“I’m told Captain Orlov called my father tai-pan, and my grandfather was just as special to him, perhaps more so.”

“That’s true,” the Captain said, standing straight. “When Captain Orlov disappeared, your father put me in charge of the fleet. I’ve served your father with all my heart, as I will you, and your son if I live that long. As a special favor, please, could it be the same as with your father?”

Sheeling was more than valuable to the Noble House. All three men knew it. And his inflexibility. Malcolm nodded, hurt even so. “Have a safe voyage, Captain.”

“Thank you, sir. And … and good luck, Mr. Struan, in everything. And you, Jamie.” As he strode for the door Malcolm broke the first seal on the pouch, but before the Captain touched the handle, the door opened. Angelique stood there. Bonnet, navy blue dress, gloves, and parasol. All three men caught their breath at her radiance.

“Oh, sorry,
chéri
, I didn’t know you were busy …”

“That’s all right, come in.” Malcolm had clambered to his feet. “May I present Captain Sheeling, of
Dancing Cloud.”

“La, Monsieur, what a gorgeous ship, how lucky you are.”

“Yes, yes, I am, Miss. Thank you,” Sheeling said, smiling back. By God, he thought, never having seen her before, who could blame Malcolm? “’Morning, Miss.” He saluted and left, not wishing to leave now, not for a little while.

“So sorry to interrupt, Malcolm, but you said to collect you for lunch, it’s to be with Sir William—and you haven’t forgotten I have a piano lesson this afternoon with André and I’ve arranged for us to have our daguerreotype taken at five. Hello, Jamie!”

“Our picture?”

“Yes, you remember the funny Italian who arrived on the last mail ship from Hong Kong for a season, he makes them, he guarantees we will look very handsome!”

Most of Malcolm’s concern had left him and he felt all of her presence, doting on her, even though he had seen her an hour ago—coffee in his suite at eleven, a habit she had instituted and he enjoyed immensely. Over the last two or three weeks her loving disposition seemed to him to have blossomed even more though she spent much of her time riding, or at archery, or piano lessons, or planning soirees, and at her journal and letter writing—a way of life for all of them. But every moment she was with him she was as attentive and tender as any woman could be. His love and his need for her grew daily, overwhelming him with its power.