Gai-Jin (157 page)

So he left his safe place and went forward until he was over the coffin, hating it and being here and that he had allowed himself to be part of this stupidity, risking her and the others for nothing, but mostly hating his own fear. The next wave tore at him but he survived it and hacked down two-handed with all his strength, slipped and grabbed the side of the cabin roof as another wave reached for him, battered him against the coffin’s side. Gasping, he fought his way up and hacked again, this time at the coffin itself, hating the evil thing that it had become.

The blade sliced through one of the rope hawsers but made no impression on the wired ones, a tangled mess, and buried itself into the beflagged lid or bottom—he did not know or care which—and split it. But still the coffin hung there. Using all his strength, he could not move it, shoving and kicking and cursing, the main length of it dangling overboard and in the water dragging them, twisting them under the sea.

Another blow and another and another, using the head of the axe now as a sledgehammer to batter the coffin to pieces, raging at it, cursing it. The wood splintered but held, then a howling blow crushed the side and top and he slipped and fell sprawling. The axe skittered out of his grasp and went overboard and the next deluge bashed him against the coffin, then pulled him away again. When the spume had gone and he could breathe he forced his eyes open. Still the same. Still firm as ever. Again he groped forward but his strength had gone and his hands could hardly hold him safe.

Then he saw a single frayed hawser part. The mess of wires and ropes screeched under the tension, twisted and untangled a little, then more, then the whole coffin slid away tail first and as it hit the ocean began to break up. For a moment its head held the surface, then it went under, froth and bubbles in its wake. A piece of cloth that was the Struan flag surfaced. The next comber broomed the sea clean and came aboard and grabbed his
legs from under him, dragged him against the bowsprit housing, then sucked him back along the deck, Tinker fighting for control again.

Astonished to be alive, Jamie found himself gasping in the stern. At the limit of his strength he groped for the door and fell into the cabin.

Skye was still in his corner retching, half-conscious, Hoag lying on his stomach, unconscious, Angelique curled up on a bench where he had left her, hanging on grimly, moaning and sobbing slightly, her eyes tightly closed. Shivering, he slumped beside her, chest heaving, mindless, knowing only that he was still alive and they were still safe.

After a while his eyes cleared. He saw land a mile or so away, and noticed that the rain had lessened and so had the sea. Now only the occasional wave came aboard. In a locker below the seat he found blankets and wrapped one around Angelique, the other around himself.

“I’m so cold, Jamie, where have you been?” she sobbed like a frightened child, only half aware. “I’m so cold, so lonely, and feel awful but so glad we did it, so glad. Oh, Jamie, I’m so cold …”

When they came alongside the Struan jetty a few misted stars were out. It was still early, at the edge of nightfall. The sky had cleared and promised a good day tomorrow. Merchantmen and the fleet lay safe at anchor, quiet, riding lights on—only the mail ship still being worked under a multitude of oil lamps like so many fireflies.

Nimbly the stoker jumped onto the wharf with a hawser and tied the craft, then helped the others. Angelique first, then Skye and Hoag. Jamie climbed the steps easily, still wrapped in his blanket, chilled but not badly. Skye and the doctor were pasty grey, their stomachs and heads ill at ease, legs weak. Now Angelique was much better. Her headache had gone. She had not been sick nor felt seasick. Once again she had cried herself out. The last half hour she had been on deck, away from the sick tainted air below, and had joined Jamie on the poop. There she faced the salt-sweet wind and let it wash her brain clean again.

Behind her Hoag coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat it into the water lapping the pilings. “Sorry,” he muttered, needing a drink badly. Then he noticed the mess on the prow, some timbers crushed, the fore hatch stove in, bowsprit vanished, halliards gone, most of the gunnel. “What the hell happened?”

“Some flotsam was washed aboard, looked like a crate. Gave me a fright for a moment,” Jamie said.

“Thought I heard a crash … I … think I’ll … think I’ll vis’t the Club before turning in.”

“I’ll join you,” Skye said, needing more than one drink to settle his stomach. “Jamie? M’ss Angelique?”

She shook her head and Jamie said, “Off you go, nothing more to do tonight. Don’t forget the plan.” They had agreed nothing was to be said other than, if asked, they had conducted a symbolic sea burial, nothing more.

Fortunately none of the others had seen the coffin come aboard or his struggle with it—except Tinker. As soon as he could, he had gone aloft to the wheelhouse. “Bosun, about the coffin, the others below saw nothing, so on your head, by God, you saw nothing and you say nothing either. It’s our secret.”

“Whatever you say, sorr.” Tinker handed him the flask and touched his forelock. “Thanks. Weren’t for you we’d be below, all of us—along with him.”

There was barely a swallow left but it helped. “I thought I’d never make it. We forget it. Your oath, eh?”

“Whatever you say, sorr, but afore we forget it, when the box sank an’ broke up an’ he come out of it, he didn’t half give me a turn, by God. I thort he were trying to bloody come back aboard.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jamie had gasped. “You’re imagining it, I saw nothing—you’re imagining it.”

“Oh, no, I weren’t, sorr, my eye line’s higher ’an yors, right? An’ I saw the bugger, begging your pardon, I saw him come out and flail for the surface afore he were sucked down.”

“You’re imagining things, for Christ’s sake. What an awful thing to say!”

“It’s the God’s Truth, sorr, so help me! ’Course it were only for a moment and sea spume were all around him, but I seed him right enough!” Tinker had spat to leeward, touched wood, and made the sign against the Evil Eye and the Devil, and pulled the lobe of his ear to make his point. “God’s truth, sorr, an’ strike me down if I lie, made my balls jump to Kingdom come. Struck out for the surface he did afore Davy Jones sucked him down, naked as a babe.”

“A lot of bloody cobblers! Nonsense!” Jamie remembered how he had shivered and touched wood himself just in case. “You’re imagining it, Bosun, though I swear to God that bloody coffin seemed to have a mind of its own, an evil one at that.”

“My whole point, sorr, it were possessed by Old Nick hisself.” Again Tinker spat to leeward, sweating. “Flailed for the surface he did, different like, eyes open and all, and I thort he was coming at us for good.”

“For Christ’s sake, give over! Malcolm wouldn’t do anything bad to us,” he had said, ill at ease. “It was a trick of your mind.”

“My eye line, sorr, was high—”

“Forget your bloody eye line. Have you any rum left?”

Tinker coughed and reached into a hidden locker and pulled out another flask. It was half empty. Jamie took a large swallow, choked, and took another.

“There’ll be ten cases of rum in our warehouse for you to draw against, Tinker, with my thanks. You did a fine job, so did the stoker—four cases for him.” Tinker thanked him effusively. The grand rum heat in his stomach had swamped all his chill. He looked at the old weathered face and shrewd blue eyes. “I was never so bloody scared, never, in my whole life. I thought I was a goner three or four times.”

“Not me, sorr,” the Bosun said with a grin. “Not with you aboard, but I was right happy when the bugger and his box were overboard and him sucked down cursing us all the way …”

Though safe ashore, again Jamie shivered, thinking of it. Angelique said, “You should get out of those wet clothes.”

Hoag said, “Well, I’m off.”

She put her arms around him and kissed his cheek, closing her nostrils to the smell of vomit. “Thank you so much, see you tomorrow.” She did the same to Skye. The two men went off unsteadily. “Will they be all right?”

Jamie said, “Nothing that a few whiskies and a night’s sleep won’t cure.”

“They’re not in shape to discuss anything, are they?”

“No. What do you want to discuss?”

She took his arm in hers and hugged it. “Just to decide about to morrow.”

“We can talk as we go.” They said good night to Tinker and the stoker, both men again thanking McFay for the rum. Then they walked off arm in arm. “Angelique—before you say anything, I’m glad we did it.”

“Oh, so am I, dear Jamie, you are a dear and I truly am so glad and so happy nothing went wrong, no one was hurt.” A wan smile. “Just a little sick.”

“Nothing to worry about. Tomorrow?”

“I’ve decided not to go with the mail ship, no, please don’t say anything, I’ve decided. I’m safer here. Until I hear from Tess formally. Really, Jamie, I am, I’m safer here. And I’m sure Hoag and George would agree that medically it would be wise. I don’t think you should go either.”

“It’s my job to tell Mrs. Struan, Mrs. Tess Struan.”

“You can call me Angelique, you always have and I, well, I’ve only been Mrs. Struan for a moment.” She sighed, continued walking towards the Struan Building. “It’s better I stay. She’ll have to declare herself, better by letter here. Malcolm’s buried and that’s all that I wanted. Do you have to go?”

“In this wind,” he said, thinking aloud,
“Prancing Cloud
could make fifteen to seventeen knots, day in day out, and be tied up in Hong Kong in five days—she’ll have the bit between her teeth with such important news and important cargo.” They had all agreed that publicly and now privately they would consider that coffin the tai-pan’s. “The mail ship will average eight
knots if she’s lucky so she’ll take the usual ten-odd days. By the time I got there the funeral will have been done, Tess will know everything from dozens of different points of view—my report’s aboard, so is Sir William’s and fifty others no doubt. She’s dismissed me at the end of the month and the new fellow arrives in a few days and I was told to show him the ropes.” Then there were reasons he decided not to say aloud: he should be canvassing other hongs—as the major companies were sometimes called—for a job. The only real, suitable job available and up to his experience and surely on offer would be Brock and Sons. Then he had to decide about Maureen, and then there was Nemi. He smiled at Angelique sadly. “It adds up to no reason to go, doesn’t it?”

She hugged his arm, oblivious of those passing. “I’m glad. I won’t feel lonely if you’re here.”

“Jamie!” Phillip Tyrer had called out from the British Legation doorway, hastily putting on his topcoat and hat, hurrying towards them. “’Evening Angelique, Jamie,” he said in an uneasy rush. “Sir William’s compliments, would you two and the—the rest of the—the passengers and crew of the cutter kindly see him tomorrow morning before church, before you both board the mail ship? She sails at two o’clock now.”

“For what purpose, Phillip?” Jamie said.

“I—I think he’d like to … dammit, oh, excuse me, Angelique, obviously he’d like to ask what on earth you were doing.”

“Doing?”

The young man sighed. “Sorry, old boy, it’s not my idea. You’re on the mat, I’ve delivered the message, that’s all. Don’t pick on me, I’m just the nearest dogsbody.”

They both laughed, tension leaving them. “Ten o’clock?”

“Thanks, Jamie, that should be plenty of time.” Tyrer looked down the way at the cutter. “Looks as though you had a rough crossing, what on earth happened to the prow?”

Jamie glanced back. The damage was clearly visible under the lamp at the head of the jetty, and, he knew, easily observable with binoculars for miles from the Legation windows. “Flotsam,” he said readily. “A crate, what looked like a crate was washed aboard, then carried away again. No great problem.”

SUNDAY, 14TH DECEMBER
:

“I don’t agree, Jamie. We have a distinct problem.” Sir William sat behind his desk, facing them. Phillip nearby, the mood in the drab office inquisitorial. “Let’s start again. You seem to be spokesman so I’ll address myself to you. I specifically said no funeral here, the body was to go back to Hong Kong an—”

“It’s already gone, Sir William, on
Prancing Cloud,”
Jamie repeated, his jaw set. They had been arguing for half an hour, he and Sir William, the others answering guardedly, all of them instructed by him and by Skye, only to respond when questioned directly and even then not to volunteer anything, just to answer the question as simply as possible: Hoag, Skye, Tinker, the stoker, and Angelique. Hoag was definitely the weakest link in the chain and twice had almost blurted out the reason. Angelique was heavily veiled, wearing black and dressed for church. “We had a make-believe funeral.”

“I know that and as I have asked repeatedly, repeatedly, if it was merely symbolic why use a real coffin with a real corpse, albeit with a native therein, and shove him over the side with a form of a Christian’s burial at sea?”

Jamie shrugged, stumped by that inevitable question. This morning Skye had said weakly, “We’d best shrug it off, brazen it out, keep our heads down, nothing much he can do but spit blood.”

“The coffin was there, I thought it a good idea.”

“Ah, this was all your idea then?”

“Yes,” Jamie said stubbornly, glaring at Hoag who started to open his mouth. “I suggested it and … and the others were good enough to go along with it. It was the tai-pan’s wish—it was Malcolm’s wish and Mrs. Struan’s. No harm was done.”

“I most assuredly disagree. The whole idea’s macabre. You deliberately went against my considered opinion; there seems to be an astonishing breakdown of reasonable thinking and a desire of all assembled here to avoid telling me the truth, the simple explanation, and you have colluded to hide … to hide what? Don’t you agree, Phillip?”

Tyrer jerked in his chair. “Er, yes, sir, if you say so.”

“Why the use of a real coffin and real body?”

Hoag shifted uncomfortably in his seat. They all knew that any moment he would break. Angelique decided that now was the time and she
began to cry. “Why don’t you just leave us alone? We did no harm, just did what we thought best, what my husband wanted, what I wanted for him …”