Although they had reoccupied their ship since the overhaul, the Brotherhood voted to spend a last night on the town. Jack hadn’t quite bounced back from his depression after the incident in the Orchid, and declined to join the festivities. Quince, Jack, and Hansumbob would stay aboard while the rest of the men went ashore in two longboats.
Earlier, Jack had walked to the port side while his shipmates were boisterously boarding a launch to starboard. A small boat carrying several Chinese gentlemen had quietly pulled alongside the Star. He had motioned for Quince to come watch.
The Chinese crew of the skiff was quiet, well dressed, and formal. An older man took to the ladder to come on board and embrace Quen-Li. Then, in turn, the four men who had been rowing stood in the boat and bowed to the Star’s mysterious cook. He returned the bows to each one, much like an admiral acknowledging the salutes of inferior officers.
It appeared that the closer to China they sailed, the more evident was the emperor’s network. Jack guessed Quen-Li was checking in with his countrymen. He wondered if there were any new names on Quen-Li’s list.
Quince turned to the men leaving for the night’s revelry and yelled to Mentor, “Keep those grog-sloppin’, whorin’ ship’s hounds to the lee of any trouble they can’t handle.”
“Aye, Skip,” he answered back, already on his way down the rope ladder.
Jack, who had joined Quince at the rail, yelled after the men that perhaps they should gag Paul now—it would increase their chances of coming back alive. The men hooted and pounded Paul on the back while he made obscene gestures at Jack as they rowed into the night.
Jack must have drifted off momentarily when a thump awakened him. Quince was still in his chair, moving his head to the swing of the shadow bat in his cabin, his eyelids drooping. For the second time Jack heard the thump to the starboard side of the ship and now what sounded like muffled imprecations. This time he could tell Quince heard it, too. Quen-Li, he figured, was in the galley, and Hansum up forward. So what the hell was it? Too early for the lads to return.
“Bob, that you?” Quince grabbed his swinging false limb and started to strap it in place, expecting a knock at the door from the ship’s poet. Instead, the door flew open, crashing against the edge of the closet.
Two brutes in striped shirts stepped in, one addressing Quince in a thick, cockney accent, “Ya comin’ peacefully, guvner?”
“What in blazes? You pressing me on my own damn ship? Are you daft? I’m a ship’s master!”
They had not yet seen Jack, who’d rolled out of the bunk and under the table just as the door flew open. “Just doin’ our jobs, guvner, now don’ ye be givin’ us a ’ard time and we’ll go easy on ye.” Outside Jack heard a commotion which must have involved Hansumbob.
“You limey, harbor scum, whoresons. You hurt one of my men and—” Quince spit the words from between gritted teeth.
But the two had Quince before he had his arm full on, so he could only manage an ineffectual left to the snout of the second man. He stopped resisting, but shook free so he could leave with dignity. The big men were brutal but not stupid; if they could get a man Quince’s size topside without having to drag him, they were happy to lead him through the companionway unfettered. They were also used to responding to authority and were uneasy about manhandling what, to all appearances, was a ship’s officer. As the last man turned to leave, Jack grabbed both of his feet and pulled for all he was worth. The man crashed to the floor, his fall softened by stumbling against the back of his partner on his way down. “What the hell?” his partner yelled.
The first man turned to Jack, trying to focus in the gloom under the table. By the time he could see, Jack’s fist smashed into his eye. But Jack was frustrated that the man hadn’t fallen to the floor harder. Summoning all his might, he dove out from under the table and hit the thug, who now had his hands over his injured eye, a short hammerlike punch to the jaw. He turned quickly to where the other man should have been but saw only Quince, who was in the process of yelling to his mate to watch his back. Too late—something thudded across Jack’s head, and he was thrust immediately into unconsciousness.
When he recovered, Jack felt himself being dragged up the companionway and tossed in a heap next to the binnacle. He watched Hansumbob try his best to resist but the two thugs were too much for him. Not a violent or especially strong man by nature, it surprised Jack how hard Hansumbob punched the man holding the sap, a sock full of lead shot, which fell from the intruder’s hand and through a scupper into the harbor. Having already felt the effect of the sap himself, Jack was relieved that it couldn’t now be used on Bob. Helplessly, he watched Hansum being dragged toward the starboard rail, the powerful arm of one of the burly men wrapped around his neck.
“All right, Yank, ya going down the ladder under yer own will or you want te wake up with yer noggin busted?”
“I’m going,” muttered Hansum, but he worried over Quince. “Say, fellas, ye don’ need to be botherin’ with the skipper. The poor skip’s only got one—” The fist that hit him in the cheek came from another man Jack hadn’t seen before; the blow seemed to surprise even the brute holding him.
“You fookin’ simpleton, shut up.”
Smithers’s voice. These men seemed to be a press-gang, but to board a ship in a foreign harbor and to press a ship’s captain was preposterous—it had to be Smithers’s doing. Hansum’s eyes bulged in righteous indignation.
“Smithers, you’re a traitor and coward sure.”
But Smithers was not to be distracted now. Quince was being escorted to the rail, his hook half on and his face dark and resigned. A twisted smile widened across Smithers’s face when he saw Quince recognize him.
“Yeah, it’s me, you one-winged gimp.”
Quince said nothing but regarded him briefly, as one would a child who had deeply disappointed him.
Jack noticed something in his stunned, half-conscious state that made him unsure he was really awake: a catlike figure perched in the shadows behind Smithers. The apparition was only a couple feet behind him, but no one seemed to notice as they tended Quince over the side, to the ladder.
“Let’s get our bleedin’ asses out of here,” came a shout from the launch. “There’s a damned boat headed this way from shore.”
The gang leader sounded anxious, uncomfortable. They’d obviously never been asked to raid a ship like this before, and even if someone, Jack would wager a one-eared Dutchman, had paid them well, and a traitor from the crew agreed it was a stolen ship—well, he just didn’t like it. “What’s keeping you idiots up there?”
Hansumbob, dragged to the rail, blurted once more at Smithers, “Ye’ll be sorry ye bald-headed bastard, when Jack and the boys get a holt a ye.”
The intruders, except for Smithers and the man that held Hansum, were over the side with Quince. Smithers turned to Hansum, raising a heavy wood batten. “’Fore I turn your lights out I’ll let you know that they won’t catch us, you buffoon, ’cause we ain’t goin’ for shore but for His Majesty’s fourth rate,” jutting his chin in the direction of the Respite, a British man-o’-war. The batten went higher, “Hold ’im where I can crack his thick skull.”