"You can forget that. You wrote her, as I told you, that you're under the tai-pan's orders, my orders, not hers?"
"Yes."
"Good, so did I and that's the end of it. Your letter and mine must have crossed hers." Malcolm lit a cheroot and noticed his fingers were shaking.
"You've never smoked?"
"No, tried once and didn't like it."
"Forget the sacking nonsense. What other bad news?"
"I've got all the correspondence and cuttings for you when you're ready. Business is rotten all over. We've lost Racing Cloud--she's too long overdue San Francisco."
"Bloody hell!" Racing Cloud was one of their clipper fleet, twenty-two ships.
Clippers, three-masted queens of the sea, were much faster on long ocean runs than cumbersome steamers that had to carry and conserve coal. Her cargo was tea, silk and spices, all highly prized goods and now, because of the American war, astronomically valuable--particularly if diverted to the South. "Insurance won't cover us, will it?"
"'fraid not. Never does, even Lloyd's.
They may even claim an Act of War. It is a war zone."
"Ayeeyah! That'll cost a pretty penny.
Damned shame about the crew. Her Captain was Caradoc, wasn't he?"
"Yes. They must have run into a hurricane-- several were reported off Hawaii though they're late this year. Her Second Mate was my cousin, Duncan McGregor."
"Oh, sorry about that." Even more depressed, Struan glanced at his bureau where the elixir waited. I wonder if the same storms swallowed Savannah Lady, along with young Pedrito Vargas and our order for five thousand rifles, he thought absently. That reminded him. "Those cannon at Mirs Bay-- they weren't sold through us were they?"
"Not to my knowledge," Jamie said, the normal response to such a question. Both were aware of major arms sales to Chinese traders who always represented the Manchu government. What happened on delivery at Canton or Shanghai was another matter.
Malcolm was thinking, I'll bet fifty Mex to a dollar they were from us, one way or another. He was party to one of Struan's inner secrets: a tenuous friend-enemy relationship existed between the Noble House and the seaborne White Lotus Wu Chois, begun by his grandfather and continued by his father. What about me? What do I do about them, he asked himself, suddenly sick to death of Yokohama and violently anxious to assume all the mantle and secrets of his grandfather--and to confront his mother. "In a week or so," he muttered.
"Tai-pan?"
"Nothing. What else, Jamie?"
Jamie went through a litany about the falling price of goods they sold and escalating price of goods they had to buy, of demands for increased danger wages for their seamen, many of whom were of English-American heritage and were being forcibly pressed aboard roving, marauding warships of both North and South. "I could go on forever, Tai-pan. Russia and France are spoiling for a fight, so Europe's a tinderbox. All over India, Moslems and Hindus are killing, murdering each other, burning crops. Whole world's crazy." He hesitated. "More urgent, the Victoria Bank wrote again about the paper they carry on us here. The notes are due..."
"I know all about that and they can rot. The Bank's Brock-controlled, they've dropped us in the sewer financing Brock's takeover of Hawaiian sugar and they're out to bankrupt us.
They can all rot, by God." Malcolm's voice had thickened. Pain was shafting from his belly. "Think I'll finish all this paperwork in case the Witch sails on the tide. Why should she turn around so fast?"
After a moment Jamie shrugged. "Don't know, but I agree: any news to do with Brock's is bad news."
The Club meeting had quickly gravitated into the usual shouting, cursing, angry mass of men, increasingly heated, with plenty of drinking, talking and no one listening, with a single theme locking them all together: "God curse all governments, all bleeding tax collectors, all fat-arsed Admirals and Generals wot don't know their poxy place, wot don't do wot they're supposed to do which is listen to the business community, do wot we bloody say and Bob's your bloody Uncle!"
"Good on yer, Lunkchurch. I proposes ..."
Whatever the man proposed was drowned in the uproar as several shouted, "Let's impeach Wee Willie...."
Exasperated, Norbert Greyforth pushed his way through the crowd from the corner of the bar where he had begun the meeting and headed for Malcolm Struan who sat beside the door, Jamie nearby.
Dmitri called out, "No conclusion, Norbert?"
"What do you expect, Dmitri? It's up to tai-pans as ever was. Come along. Jamie, would you and..." Norbert was going to needle Malcolm by calling him young Struan but he remembered Sir William's very blunt and sour threat not to provoke him in public or else.
Even more he could feel Tyler Brock's letter burning in his pocket. He looked down at Malcolm and said politely, "Would you two please join me--a private chat, eh?
Dmitri you too?"
Malcolm had expected Norbert just to pass by with a curt nod. "Certainly. Where?
Outside?"
"In my office, if it pleases you."
The three men followed him. All on guard.
"Is Ocean Witch leaving on the tide?"
Malcolm asked.
"Yes."
Dmitri said, "Why the fast turnaround, Norbert?"
"Tyler's orders." Norbert noticed the sudden shadow cross Struan's face and he smiled to himself.
His temporary office was on the ground floor while repairs were being done to the fire-ravaged upstairs. The central staircase was blackened, the roof off in places but covered temporarily with sail canvas. "Proper bugger, the fire, but there you are, happens to everyone sometime. Fortunately as I said, the safes weren't touched nor the books and warehouse." He motioned to leather easy chairs. "Make yourself comfortable."
On the sideboard were glasses and drinks, whisky, brandy, gin, vintage wine, with champagne already on ice. His Chinese Number One Boy stood waiting to serve them. Their caution increased. "What's your pleasure?"
"Champagne," Malcolm said, the others echoing him. He was feeling fine now, the elixir as always encouraging him to seem inviolate as well as deadening the pain. When all glasses were filled, Norbert jerked his thumb at the servant who bowed and left them. "Health!" They returned the toasted mildly. He sat on the edge of the desk, tall, lean and confident.
"We're safe from ears here," he said. "First, we, us'n, we represent the three biggest companies, we should jointly write a complaint to Wee Willie, not that it'll do much good, and to the Admiral--we all agree he's an impediment. No reason, Dmitri why you shouldn't have at him too, Cooper-Tillman's got a lot to lose here as well as us. At the same time we should mount a campaign, Struan's and us in Parliament to settle Japan once and for all-- either we smash the Jappos and put them in their place or we quit."
"We're not quitting Japan," Malcolm said and McFay relaxed a little.
"Nor are we," Norbert said thinly, "that's only our ploy for those miserable bastards in Parliament." He picked up a file from the immaculate desk and selected a single sheet of paper. "This's a secret dispatch from London via Ocean Witch from one of our watchdogs there, dated September 16th."
"That's damn fast," Jamie said for all of them.
"We keep abreast, Jamie. Tyler says to share part of it with you three. I'll read it: Yesterday the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer privately agreed in the next Budget to up the tax on tea by 4 pence the pound, a penny a pint on beer, shilling on all brandy and imported wines, doubling the tax on tobacco..." They all gasped.
"... doubling the import tax on cotton ..."
"Goddamn!" Dmitri exploded. "That's crazy! That and tobacco are the only cash crops we've got in the South! They do that what happens to our war and what happens to your goddam Lancashire mills?"