Struan ate heartily and so did Mauss. But Cooper had no relish for his food.
“Mass’er?” a servant said.
“Aye?”
“One-Eye Mass’er dooa here. Can?”
“Can.”
Brock stalked into the room. His son Gorth was with him. “Morning, gentlemen. Morning, Dirk lad.”
“Breakfast?”
“Thank you kindly.”
“You had a good voyage, Gorth?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Struan.” Gorth was of a size with his father, a hard man, scarred and broken-nosed, with grizzled hair and beard. “Next time I be beating
Thunder Cloud.”
“Next time, lad,” Brock said with a laugh, “you be captaining her.” He sat and began to gorge himself. “Will thee pass the stew, Mr. Cooper?” He jerked a bent thumb at the window. “Them bastards doan mean no good.”
“Aye. What do you think, Brock?” Struan asked.
“The Co-hong be tearing their pigtails out. So trade be finished for the time. First time I seed poxy bannermen.”
“Evacuate the Settlement?”
“I baint bein’ chased out by Chinee or by bannermen.” Brock helped himself to more stew. “Course I may retreat a little. In me own time. Most of us’n be starting back tomorrer for the land sale. But we’d do good to call a council right smartly. You’ve arms here?”
“Na enough.”
“We’ve plenty for a siege. Gorth bringed ’em. This place be the best to defend. It be almost ourn anyway,” he added.
“How many bullyboys have you?”
“Twenty. Gorth’s lads. They’ll take on a hundred Chinese apiece.”
“I’ve thirty, counting the Portuguese.”
“Forget the Portuguese. Better us’n alone.” Brock wiped his mouth and broke a small loaf in two and smeared it with butter and marmalade.
“You can’t defend the Settlement, Brock,” Cooper said.
“We can defend this factory, lad. Doan thee worry about us’n. You and the rest of the Americans hole up in yorn. They won’t touch thee—it’s us’n they want after.”
“Aye,” Struan said. “And we’ll need you to watch our trade if we have to leave.”
“That be another reason I come here, Dirk. Wanted to talk open about trade and Cooper-Tillman. I made a proposal which were accepted.”
“The proposal was accepted subject to Struan and Company’s not being able to fulfill prior arrangements,” Cooper said. “We’re giving you thirty days, Dirk. On top of the thirty days.”
“Thank you, Jeff. That’s generous.”
“That be stupid, lad. But I doan mind the time, I be generous too with yor time. Five more days, Dirk, eh?”
Struan turned to Mauss. “Go back to the Co-hong and find out what you can. Be careful and take one of my men.”
“I don’t need a man with me.” Mauss heaved his girth out of the chair and left.
“We’ll hold the council downstairs,” Struan said.
“Good. Perhaps we should all move in here. There be space enough.”
“That would give us away. Better to prepare and wait. It may just be a trick.”
“Right thee are, lad. We be safe enough till servants disappear. Come on, Gorth. Conference in an hour? Downstairs?”
“Aye.”
Brock and Gorth left. Cooper broke a silence. “What does it all mean?”
“I think it’s a ploy by Ti-sen to make us nervous. To prepare for some concessions he wants.” Struan laid a hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “Thanks for the thirty days. I will na forget.”
“Moses had forty days. I thought thirty’d be adequate for you.”
The conference was noisy and angry, but Brock and Struan dominated it.
All the traders—with the exception of the Americans— were in the huge state room that Struan used as his private office. Kegs of cognac, whisky, rum, and beer lined one wall. Tiers of books and ledgers lined another. Quance paintings hung on the walls—landscapes of Macao, portraits, and ships. Glass-fronted chests with pewter mugs and silver tankards. And racks of cutlasses, and muskets; powder and shot.
“It’s nothing, I tell you,” Masterson snorted. He was a red-faced, dewlapped man in his early thirties, head of the firm of Masterson, Roach and Roach. He was dressed like the other men—dark wool broadcloth frock coat, resplendent waistcoat and felt top hat. “The Chinese have never molested the Settlement ever since there was one here, by God.”
“Aye. But that was before we went to war with them and won it.” Struan wished they would all agree and go. He held a perfumed handkerchief over his nose against the rancid stench of their bodies.
“I say toss the bloody bannermen out of the square right now,” Gorth said, refilling his tankard with beer.
“We be doing that if it be necessary.” Brock spat into the pewter spitoon. “I be tired of all this talkin’. Now be we agreeing with Dirk’s plan or baint we?”
He glared around the room.
Most of the traders glared back. There were forty of them—English and Scots, except for Eliksen the Dane, who factored for a London firm, and a corpulent Parsee dressed in flowing robes, Rumajee, from India. MacDonald, Kerney, Maltby from Glasgow and Messer, Vivien, Tobe, Smith of London were the chief traders, all tough, oak-hard men in their thirties.
“I sniff troubles,
sir,” Rumajee said and pulled at his vast mustache. “I counsel immediate retreat.”
“For God’s sake, the whole point of the plan, Rumajee, is not to retreat,” Roach said caustically. “To retreat only if necessary. I vote for the plan. And I agree with Mr. Brock. Too much bloody talking and I’m tired.” Struan’s plan was simple. They would all wait in their own factories; if trouble began, on a signal from Struan, they would converge on his factory under covering fire from his men if necessary. “Retreat before the heathen? Never, by God!”
“May I suggest something, Mr. Struan?” Eliksen asked.
Struan nodded at the tall, fair-haired, taciturn man. “Of course.”
“Perhaps one of us should volunteer to take word to Whampoa. From there a fast lorcha could hare for the fleet at Hong Kong. Just in case they surround us and cut us off as before.”
“Good idea.” Vivien said. He was tall, pallid and very drunk. “Let’s all volunteer. Can I have another whisky? There’s a good chap.”
Then all at once they were talking again and quarreling about who should volunteer, and at length Struan pacified them. “It was Mr. Eliksen’s suggestion. If he’s a mind to, why na let him have the honor?”
They trooped into the garden and watched as Struan and Brock escorted Eliksen across the square to the lorcha Struan had put at his disposal. The bannermen paid no attention to them, other than to point and jeer.
The lorcha headed downstream.
“Mayhaps we be never seeing him again,” Brock said.
“I dinna think they’ll touch him or I’d never’ve let him go.”
Brock grunted. “For a foreigner, he baint a bad ‘un.” He went back with Gorth to his own factory. The other traders streamed to theirs.
When Struan was satisfied with the arrangement of the armed watch in the garden, and at the back door that let onto Hog Street, he returned to his suite.