Gott im Himmel, too many for a pirate fleet. Would they be an invasion armada? Surely they wouldn’t dare attack Hong Kong with our fleet so near.”
“We’ll soon find out,” Struan said. “Two points to starboard!”
“Two points to starboard,” the helmsman called. “Steady as she goes!” Struan checked the lie of the sails. The throbbing of the wind and the straining rigging filled him with excitement.
“Look!” Captain Orlov cried out, pointing astern. Another flotilla of junks was swooping out from behind the southern tip of Pokliu Chau, readying to cut off their retreat.
“It’s an ambush! Ready to go about . . .”
“Avast there, Captain! I’m on the quarterdeck!” Captain Orlov walked sourly over to the helmsman and stood by the binnacle, damning the rule which provided that when the Tai-Pan was on the quarterdeck of any ship of The Noble House he was captain.
Well, Orlov thought, good luck, Tai-Pan. If we don’t go about and run, those gallows-baited junks will cut us off and the others ahead’ll swamp us, and my beautiful ship will be no more. The devil she will! We’ll blow thirty of them to the fire pits of Valhalla and sail through them like a Valkyrie.
And for the first time in four days, he forgot the bullion and gleefully thought only of the coming fight. The ship’s bell sounded eight bells. “Permission to go below, Captain!” Orlov said. “Aye. Take Mr. Culum and show him what to do.” Orlov preceded Culum nimbly into the depths of the ship. “At eight bells in the forenoon watch—that’s noon, shore time—it’s the duty of the captain to wind the chronometer,” he said, relieved to be off the quarterdeck now that Struan had usurped command. But then, he told himself, if you were Tai-Pan you’d do the same. You’d never allow anyone to have the most beautiful job on earth when you were there.
His small blue eyes were studying Culum. He had seen Culum’s immediate distaste and the covert looks at his back and tiny legs. Even after forty years of such looks he still hated to be thought a freak. “I was birthed in a blizzard on an ice floe. My mother said I was so beautiful the evil spirit Vorg mashed me with his hoofs an hour after my birth.”
Culum moved uneasily in the half-darkness. “Oh?”
“Vorg has cloven hoofs.” Orlov chuckled. “Do you believe in spirits?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
“But you believe in the Devil? Like all good Christians?”
“Yes.” Culum tried to keep his fear off his face. “What has to be done to the chronometer?”
“It has to be wound.” Again Orlov chuckled. “If you’d been born as I was, mayhaps you’d be Culum the Hunchback instead of Culum the Tall and Fair, eh? You look at things differently from here.”
“I’m sorry—it must be very hard for you.”
“Not hard—your Shakespeare had better words. But don’t worry, Culum the Strong. I can kill a man twice my size so easily. Would you like me to teach you to kill? You couldn’t have a better teacher. Except the Tai-Pan.”
“No. No, thank you.”
“Wise to learn. Very wise. Ask your father. One day you’ll need such knowledge. Aye, soon. Did you know I had second sight?”
Culum shuddered. “No.”
Orlov’s eyes glittered and his smile made him more gnomelike and evil. “You’ve a lot to learn. You want to be Tai-Pan, don’t you?”
“Yes. I hope to be. One day.”
“There’ll be blood on your hands that day.”
Culum tried to control his sudden start. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’ve ears. You’ll have blood on your hands that day. Yes. And soon you’ll need someone you can trust for many a day. So long as Norstedt Stride Orlov, the hunchback, is captain of one of your ships, you can trust him.”
“I’ll remember, Captain Orlov,” Culum said, and promised himself that when he did become Tai-Pan Orlov would never be one of his captains. Then, as he looked back into the man’s face, he had the weird feeling that Orlov had seen into his heart.
“What’s the matter, Captain?”
“Ask yourself that.” Orlov unlocked the housing of the chronometer. To do this he had to stand on a rung of the ladder. Then he began to wind the clock carefully with a large key. “You wind this clock thirty-three times.”
“Why do you do it? Not one of the officers?” Culum asked, not really caring.
“It’s the captain’s job. One of them. Navigation’s one of the secret things. If all aboard knew how to do it, there’d be mutiny after mutiny. Best that only the captain and a few of the officers know. Then, without them, the seamen are lost and helpless. We keep the chronometer locked and here for safety. Isn’t it beautiful? The workmanship? Made by good English brains and good English hands. It tells London time exactly.”
Culum felt the closeness of the passageway and nausea building inside of him—overlaid by fear of Orlov and of the coming battle. But he caught hold of himself and was determined that he would not allow Orlov to bait him into losing his temper, and tried to close his nostrils against the pervading sour smell from the bilges. There’ll be a reckoning later, he swore. “Is a chronometer so very important?”
“You’ve been to university and you ask that? Without this beauty we’d be lost. You’ve heard of Captain Cook? He used the first one, and proved it, sixty years ago. Until that time we could never find our longitude. But now, with exact London time and the sextant, we know where we are to a mile.” Orlov relocked the housing and shot an abrupt glance at Culum. “Can you use a sextant?”
“No.”
“When we sink the junks, I’ll show you. You think you can be Tai-Pan of The Noble House ashore? Eh?”
There was the sound of scurrying feet on deck and they felt
China Cloud surge even faster through the waves. Here, below, the whole ship seemed to pulsate with life.
Culum licked his dry lips. “Can we sink so many and escape?”
“If we don’t, we’ll be swimming.” The little man beamed up at Culum. “Ever been shipwrecked or sunk?”
“No. And I can’t swim.”
“If you’re a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable—if the sea wants you and your time has come.” Orlov pulled the chain to make certain the lock was secure. “Thirty years I’ve been to sea an’ I can’t swim. I’ve been sunk upwards of ten times, from the China seas to the Bering Straits, but I’ve always found a spar or a boat. One day the sea’ll get me. In her own time.” He eased the fighting iron on his wrist. “I’ll be glad to be back in port.”
Culum thankfully followed him up the gangway. “You don’t trust the men aboard?”
“A captain trusts his ship, only his ship. And himself alone.”
“You trust my father?”
“He’s the captain.”
“I don’t understand.”
Orlov made no reply. Once on the quarterdeck, he checked the sails and frowned. Too much sail, too close to shore. Too many unknown reefs and the smell of a squall somewhere. The line of encroaching junks was two miles ahead: implacable, silent, closing in on them.
The ship had full sails set, the mainsails still reefed, the whole ship throbbing with joy. This joy permeated the crew. When Struan ordered the reefs let go, they sprang to the rigging and sang the sails into place and forgot about the bullion that had infected them. The wind freshened and the sails crackled. The ship heeled over and gathered speed, the seawater frothing like yeast in the scuppers.