Dispatch from whom?"
Marlowe sighed, opened the door. "Sir William, sir."
"What the hell's that idiot done n--"
Admiral Ketterer stopped, seeing Tyrer.
"Oh, you're his aide, aren't you?"
"Apprentice interpreter, sir, Phillip Tyrer." He handed him the letter, "Er, Sir William's compliments, sir."
The Admiral tore the letter open. He was wearing a long flannel nightgown and tasselled sleeping hat and thin-rimmed reading glasses and he pursed his lips as he read: I consider it best to cancel your appearance at the meeting today, as well as the General and the other Ministers. We are totally surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of heavily armed samurai. Thus far they have done nothing hostile, or prevented anyone from leaving, yet. Certainly they have the right to put their own troops where they wish --perhaps it's just a bluff to unhinge us. For safety, however, I will handle the Bakufu alone, if they appear as demanded. (if this occurs I will run up a blue pennant and will endeavour to keep you advised of developments.) If the Bakufu do not appear I will wait another day or two, then may have to order an ignominious withdrawal. In the meantime, if you see the flag hauled down it will mean they have overrun us. You may then take whatever action you see fit. I am, Sir, your obedient servant....
Carefully the Admiral reread the letter, then said decisively, "Mr. Marlowe, ask the Captain and General to join me here at once.
Send the following message to all ships: "You will instantly go to action stations. All Captains to report aboard the flagship at noon." Next, send a signal to the Ministers asking them to be kind enough to join me here as soon as possible. Mr. Tyrer, get yourself some breakfast and be ready to carry back a reply within a few minutes."
"But, sir, don't you think--"
The Admiral was already bellowing at the closed door. "Johnson!"
Instantly his orderly opened the door.
"Barber's on his way, sir, your uniform's freshly ironed, breakfast's ready the moment you're at table, the porridge's hot!"
Ketterer's look fell on Marlowe and Tyrer. "What the devil are you waiting for?"
At Yokohama the Struan cutter--the only steam engine, propeller-driven, small boat in the Japans--swung against their wharf, wind brisk with a slight swell to the grey sea under the overcast. Jamie McFay climbed nimbly up the steps, then hurried along its length heading for their two-story building dominating the High Street. It was barely eight o'clock but he had already been out to meet the bimonthly mail ship that had arrived with the dawn, to collect mail, dispatches and the latest newspapers that his Chinese assistant began to load into a cart. Clutched in his hand were two envelopes, one opened the other sealed.
"'Morning, Jamie." Gabriel Nettlesmith intercepted him, stepping out from a small group of sleepy traders waiting for their boats. He was a short, roly-poly, untidy, smelly man, reeking of ink and unwashed clothes and the cigars that he smoked perpetually, editor and publisher of the Yokohama Guardian, the Settlement's newspaper, one of the many in Asia that Struan's owned, openly or secretly. "What's amiss?"
"Lots--be kind enough to join me for tiffin.
Sorry, can't stop."
Even without the fleet at anchor the harbor was already busy with cutters plying to and from the half a hundred merchantmen, others clustering the mail ship, still others heading for her or coming back.
Jamie was the first ashore, a matter of principle with him and a business expedient where prices of essential items, always in short supply, could fluctuate wildly depending on the mails. Hong Kong to Yokohama direct by mail steamer took about nine days, via Shanghai, about eleven, weather permitting. Mail from home, England, took eight to twelve weeks, weather and piracy permitting, and mail day always an anxious time, joyous, awful or in between but ever welcome, waited for and prayed for nonetheless.
Norbert Greyforth of Brock and Sons, Struan's main rival, was still a hundred yards offshore, sitting comfortably amidships, his oarsmen pulling hard, watching him through his telescope. McFay knew he was being observed but it did not bother him today. The bugger will know soon enough if he doesn't know already, he thought, feeling uncommonly frightened. Frightened for Malcolm Struan, the Company, himself, for the future and for his ai-jin--love person--who waited equally patiently in their tiny Yoshiwara house across the canal, outside the fence.
He increased his pace. Three or four drunks lay in the gutter of High Street like old sacks of coal, others scattered here and there down along the seafront. He stepped over one man, avoided a raucous group of inebriated merchant seamen staggering for their boats, ran up his steps into the large foyer of Struan's, up the staircase to the landing and down the corridor that led to suites of rooms the whole length of the godown.
Quietly he opened a door and peered in.
"Hello, Jamie," Malcolm Struan said from the bed.
"Oh, hello, Malcolm, 'morning. I wasn't sure if you'd be awake." He closed the door behind him, noticed that the door to the adjoining suite was ajar, and went over to the huge teak four-poster that, like all the furniture, came from Hong Kong or England. Malcolm Struan was pasty-faced, and drawn, propped on pillows--the boat trip back from Kanagawa yesterday had drained more of his precious strength even though Dr. Babcott had kept him sedated and they had made the journey as smooth as possible. "How are you today?"
Struan just peered up at him, his blue eyes seemingly faded and set deeper into their sockets, shadows underneath. "Mail from Hong Kong's not good, eh?" The words were flat, and gave McFay no way to break it easily.
"Yes, sorry. You heard the signal gun?"
Whenever the mail ship came within sight, it was custom for the Harbor Master to fire a cannon to alert the Settlement--the same procedure all over the world, wherever there were Settlements.
"Yes, I did," Struan said. "Before you tell me the bad, close her door and give me the chamber pot."
McFay obeyed. The other side of the door was a drawing room and beyond that a bedroom, the best apartment in the whole building and normally reserved exclusively for the tai-pan, Malcolm's father.
Yesterday at Malcolm's insistence and her happy compliance, Angelique had been installed there. At once the news had rushed around the Settlement, feeding other reports and rumors that their Angelique had become the new Lady of the Lamp, and the betting odds on that she was Struan's in more ways than one, every man wanting to be in his bed.
"You're mad," McFay had told some of them at the Club last night. "The poor fellow's in terrible shape."
Dr. Babcott interrupted, "He'll be up and about before you know it."
"It's got to be wedding bells, by God!" someone said.
"Drinks on the house," another called out expansively, "Good-oh, we'll have our own wedding, our first wedding."
"We've had lots, Charlie, what about our musumes?"' "They don't count for God's sake, I mean a real church wedding--and a right proper christening an--"' "Jumping Jehovah, are you implying one's in the oven?"' "The rumor's they was like stoats on the ship coming here, not that I blame him..."
"Angel Tits weren't even feeanced then, by God! Say that agin', impugg'ning 'er 'onor, and I'll do you by God!"
McFay sighed. A few drunken blows and broken bottles, both men had been thrown out to crawl back within the hour to an uproarious welcome. Last night, when he had peeped in here before going to bed himself, Malcolm was asleep and she was nodding in a chair beside the bed. He awoke her gently. "Best get some proper sleep, Miss Angelique, he won't wake now."
"Yes, thank you, Jamie."
He had watched her stretch luxuriously like a contented young feline, half asleep, hair down around her bared shoulders, her gown high waisted and loose, falling in folds that the Empress Josephine had favored fifty years before and some Parisian haute couturiers were trying to reintroduce, all of her pulsating with a male-attracting life force. His own suite was along the corridor. For a long time he had not slept.