"Come along, Little Mealy Mouth," Four Fingers said with a cackle, "we can safely leave them to their joss. Time's wasting." "No, Father," she said quickly. "Any moment the TV cameras and press will arrive—we must think of our image, heya?" "Image? It's the pillow and the Gorgeous G—" "Later!" she said imperiously and he bit back the curse he was going to add. "Don't you want to be hailed as a hero?" she said sharply. "Perhaps even a knighthood like Shitee, heya?" Quickly she dirtied her hands and her face and carefully ripped one of the straps above her breast and went near to the gangway where she could see and be seen. Four Fingers watched her blankly. A quai loh honor like Shitee? he thought astounded. Eeeeee, why not! He followed her warily, taking great care not to get too close to any danger.They saw a tongue of flame sweep out of the chimney on the top deck and frightened people looking down from the three decks of windows. People were collecting on the wharf. Others were stumbling out to safety in hysterics, many coughing from the smoke that was beginning to possess the whole restaurant. There was another shouting crush in the doorway, a few went down and some scuttled from under the milling feet, those behind shrieking at those in front to hurry, and again Four Fingers and other onlookers laughed.On the top deck Bartlett leaned over the railings and looked down at the hull and the jetty below. He could see crowds on the wharf and milling, hysterical people fighting out of the entrance. There was no other staircase, ladder or escape possibility on either side. His heart was hammering but he was not afraid. There's no real danger, yet, he thought. We can jump into the water below. Easy. It's what, thirty, forty feet—no sweat if you dqn't belly flop. He ran back along the deck that used up half the length of the boat. Black smoke, sparks and a little flame surged out of the funnels. He opened the top-deck door and closed it quickly in order not to create any added draft. The smoke was much worse and the flames coming out of the dumbwaiter were continuous now. The smoke smell on the air was acrid and carried the stench of burning meat. Almost everyone was crowded around the far doorway. Gornt was standing apart by himself watching them, sipping a drink. Bartlett thought, Jesus, there's one cold-blooded bastard! He skirted the dumbwaiter carefully, his eyes smarting from the smoke, and almost knocked over Christian Toxe who was hunched over the telephone shouting into it above the noise, "… I don't give a shit, get a photographer out here right now, and then phone the fire department!" Angrily Toxe slammed down the phone and muttering, "Stupid bastards," went back to his wife, a matronly Chinese woman who stared at him blankly. Bartlett hurried toward Dun-ross. The tai-pan stood motionless beside Peter and Fleur Marlowe, Orlanda and Casey, whistling tonelessly."Nothing, Ian," he said quietly, noticing his voice sounded strange, "not a goddamn thing. No ladders, nothing. But we can jump, easy, if necessary.""Yes. We're lucky being on this deck. The others may not be so lucky." Dunross watched the smoke and fire spurting from the dumbwaiter that was near the exit door. "We'll have to decide pretty soon which way to go," he said gently. "That fire could cut us off from the outside. If we go out we may never get back in and we'll have to jump. If we stay in, we can only use the stairs.""Jesus," Casey muttered. She was trying to calm her racing heart and the feeling of claustrophobia that was welling up. Her skin felt clammy and her eyes were darting from the exit to the doorway and back again. Bartlett put an arm around her. "It's no sweat, we can jump anytime.""Yes, sure, Line." Casey was holding on grimly. "You can swim, Casey?" Dunross asked. "Yes. I … was caught in a fire once. Ever since then I've been frightened to death of them." It was a few years before when her little house in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles was in the path of one of the sudden summer conflagrations and she had been bottled in, the winding canyon road already burning below. She had turned on all the water sprinklers and begun to hose the roof. The clawing heat of the fire had reached out at her. Then the fire had crested, jumping from the top of one valley to the opposite side, to begin burning down both sides toward the valley floor, whipped by hundred-mile-an-hour gusts self-generated by the fire. The roaring flames obliterated trees and houses, came closer and there was no way out. In terror, she kept the hose on her roof. Cats and dogs from the homes above fled past her and one wild-eyed Alsatian cowered in the lee of her house. The heat and the smoke and the terror surrounded her and it went on and on but this part of the fire stopped fifty feet from her boundary. For no reason. Above, all the houses on her street had gone. Most of the canyon. A swath almost half a mile wide and two long burned for three days in the hills that bisected the city of Los Angeles."I'm all right, Line," she said shakily. "I … I think I'd rather be outside than here. Let's get the hell out of here. A swim'd be great.""I can't swim!" Orlanda was trembling. Then her control snapped and she got up to rush for the stairs.Bartlett grabbed her. "Everything's going to be all right. Jesus, you'll never make it that way. Listen to the poor bastards down there, they're in real trouble. Stay put, huh? The stairs're no good." She hung on to him, petrified. "You'll be all right," Casey said compassionately. "Yes," Dunross said, his eyes on the fire and billowing smoke. Marlowe said, "We, er, we're really in very good shape, tai-pan, aren't we? Yes. The fire's got to be from the kitchens. They'll get it under control. Fleur, pet, there'll be no need to go over the side." "It's no sweat," Bartlett assured him. "There's plenty of sampans to pick us up!""Oh yes, but she can't swim either."Fleur put her hand on her husband's arm. "You always said I should learn, Peter."Dunross wasn't listening. He was consumed with fear and trying to dominate it. His nostrils were filled with the stench of burning meat that he knew oh so well and he was near vomiting. He was back in his burning Spitfire, shot out of the sky by a Messerschmitt 109 over the Channel, the cliffs of Dover too far away, and he knew the fire would consume him before he could tear the jammed and damaged cockpit canopy free and bail out, the horror-smell of scorching flesh, his own, surrounding him. In terror he smashed his fist impotently against the Perspex, his other beating at the flames around his feet and knees, choking from the acrid smoke in his lungs, half blinded. Then there was a sudden frantic roar as the cowl ripped away, an inferno of flames surged up and surrounded him and somehow he was out and falling away from the flames, not knowing if his face was gone, the skin of his hands and feet, his boots and flying overalls still smoking. Then the shuddering nauseating jerk as his chute opened, then the dark silhouette of the enemy plane hurtled toward him out of the sun and he saw the machine guns sparking and a tracer blew part of his calf away. He remembered none of the rest except the smell of burning flesh that was the same then as now."What do you think, tai-pan?""What?""Shall we stay or leave?" Marlowe repeated."We'll stay, for the moment," Dunross said and they all wondered how he could sound so calm and look so calm. "When the stairs clear we can walk out. No reason to get wet if we don't have to."Casey smiled at him hesitantly. "These fires happen often?" "Not here, but they do in Hong Kong, I'm afraid. Our Chinese friends don't care much about fire regulations . . ."It was still only a few minutes since the first violent gust of fire had swirled up in the kitchen but now the fire had a full hold there and, through the access of the dumbwaiter, a strong hold on the central sections of the three decks above. The fire in the kitchen blocked half the room from the only staircase. Twenty terrified men were trapped on the wrong side. The rest of the staff had fled long since to join the heaving mass of people on the deck above. There were half a dozen portholes but these were small and rusted up. In panic one of the cooks rushed at the flaming barrier, screamed as the flames engulfed him, almost made it through but slipped and kept on screaming for a long while. A petrified moan burst from the others. There was no other escape possibility.