“ ‘Marry us and you’ll keep your ship, by God. Don’t, and I’ll hound you out of seas, by God.’ ” Orlov grinned. “I’d’ve married them anyway.”
“I was thinking of taking away your ship mysel’.”
Orlov’s grin vanished. “Eh?”
“I’m thinking of reorganizing the company—putting the fleet under one man. Would you like the job?”
“Ashore?”
“Of course ashore. Can you run a fleet from the quarterdeck of one clipper?”
Orlov bunched his fist and shook it toward Struan’s face.
“You’re a devil from hell! You tempt me with power beyond my dreams, to take the only thing I love on earth. On a quarterdeck I forget what I am—by God, you know that. Ashore what am I, eh? Stride Orlov the hunchback!”
“You could be Stride Orlov, tai-pan of the noblest fleet on earth. I’d say that’s a man’s job.” Struan’s eyes did not waver from the dwarf’s face.
Orlov spun around and went to the windward gunnel and began a paroxysm of Norwegian and Russian obscenities that went on for minutes.
He stamped back. “When would this be?”
“The end of this year. Maybe later.”
“And my trip north? For furs? Have you forgotten that?”
“You’d want to cancel it, eh?”
“What gives you the right to puppetize the world? Eh?”
“Helmsman! Come aft!” Struan gave the wheel back to the seaman as
China Cloud broke out of the channel into the calm waters of the harbor. Ahead a mile was the jutting Kowloon Peninsula. The land on either side of the ship was barren and parched and fell away rapidly. To port, a mile or so ahead, was the rocky island promontory that had been called North Point. Beyond North Point, unseen from this position, were Happy Valley and Glessing’s Point and the small part of the harbor that was being used.
“Nor’ by nor’west,” Struan ordered.
“Nor’ by nor’west, sorr,” the helmsman echoed.
“Steady as she goes.” He looked over his shoulder at Orlov. “Well?”
“I’ve no option. I know when your mind’s set. You’d beach me without a second thought. But there’re are conditions.”
“Well?”
“First I want
China Cloud. For six months. I want to go home. A last time.” Either your wife and sons will come back with you or they’ll stay, Orlov told himself. They’ll stay, and they’ll spit in your face and damn you to hell and you waste six months of a ship’s life.
“Agreed. As soon as I’ve another clipper here,
China Cloud’s yours. You’ll bring back a cargo of furs. Next?”
“Next, Green Eyes, your law: that when you’re aboard, you’re captain. That for me.”
“Agreed. Next?”
“There’s no ‘next.’ ”
“We have na discussed money.”
“The pox on money! I’ll be tai-pan of the fleet of The Noble House. What more could a man desire?”
Struan knew the answer.
May-may. But he said nothing. They shook hands on the deal, and when the ship was a quarter mile off Kowloon, Struan ordered
China Cloud on to a southwest-by-south tack and headed into the harbor proper.
“All hands on deck! Lay for’ard! Take over, Captain. Lie alongside
Resting Cloud. Our passengers’ll transship first. Then the storm anchorage.”
“Thank you,
Captain,” Orlov grunted. “It’s good to be in harbor, by God!”
Struan surveyed the shore with the binoculars. Now he could see into the depths of Happy Valley: buildings abandoned, no movement. He moved the glasses slightly and adjusted the focus, and the building sites of the new Queen’s Town around Glessing’s Point sharpened. The scaffolding of his new, huge factory was already up, and he could see coolies swarming like ants: carrying, building, digging. Scaffoldings were up, too, on the knoll where he had ordered the Great House to be built. And he could see the thin, lean cut of the road that now snaked up the hill.
Tai Ping Shan had grown appreciably. Where there had been a few hundred sampans plying back and forth to the mainland, now there were a thousand.
More warships and transports were swinging at anchor, and a few more merchantmen. Houses and hovels and temporary shelters were sprawling the ribbon of Queen’s Road that skirted the shore. And the whole foreshore was pulsating with activity.
China Cloud saluted the flagship as she rounded the headland, and there was an answering cannon.
“Signal from the flagship, sorr!” the lookout called.
Struan and Orlov swung their binoculars on the flags, which read: “Captain requested to report aboard immediately.”
“Shall I lay alongside her?” Orlov asked.
“Nay. Put the cutter over the side when we’re within two chains. You’re responsible for seeing my passengers aboard
Resting Cloud safely. Wi’out any alien eyes sniffing around.”
“Leave it to me.”
Struan went below and told May-may that he would see her soon and got her and Ah Sam and Yin-hsi ready to transship.
Orlov’s eyes darted around the ship. A shore job, eh? Well, we’ll see. There’s many a league to travel yet, he told himself. Devil take him. Yes, but I’d go against the Devil himself for Green Eyes—Odin’s whelp. He needs a man like me. But he’s right again. That would be a
man’s job.
His thought warmed him very much.
“Look lively!” he roared at the crew, knowing that many glasses would be trained on them, and he kept full sail and ripped carelessly toward the flagship. His heart sang with the rigging, and then at the last second he shouted, “Helm alee!” and the ship spun around and pointed as breathlessly as a hound at a covey of partridges.
The cutter was lowered over the side and Struan shinned down the boarding ropes. The cutter cast off and
China Cloud fell off a few points and eased perfectly alongside
Resting Cloud.
“All hands below!” Orlov ordered. “Clear decks, Mr. Cudahy. Ours and theirs. We’re transshipping a cargo that’s not about to be counted, by God!”
Struan opened the door to the flagship’s main cabin.
“By God, Dirk! We’re all ruined!” Longstaff said agitatedly, coming over to him and waving a copy of the
Oriental Times in his face. “Have you seen this? Ruined! Ruined!”
Struan took the paper. The headlines on the inside editorial page were glaring:
FOREIGN SECRETARY REPUDIATES CHINA TRADERS.
“Nay, Will,” he said.
“By all that’s holy, how dare he do such a stupid thing, what? Damned fool! What are we going to do?”
“Let me read it, Will. Then I’ll see what it’s all about.”
“Idiot Cunnington’s repudiated our treaty. That’s what it’s about. And I’m sacked! Replaced! Me! How dare he?”
Struan raised his eyebrows and whistled. “Have you na been informed by dispatch yet?”
“Of course not! Who the devil informs the plenipotentiary, what?”