BOOK I

BOOK I

Chapter 1

31 December 1856 Wednesday Morning

ANDREW Adams banged open the front door of the Bee Hive Tavern by employing the drunk and disorderly French sailor as a battering ram, and, planting a foot firmly on the seat of his duck trousers, sent the man sailing out into the street. By stretching out his legs and flapping his arms, the Frenchman just managed to keep his balance, but the motion made him appear ridiculous. Sailors, whores, ship chandlers and boarding house owners spilled out into the street, hoping to be entertained by yet another Hong Kong street brawl. Passing Chinese policemen in conical hats and filthy uniforms laughed and pointed, infuriating the sailor still further.

As the man reached for his sheath knife, he spun around to see Adams withdrawing his own knife from his boot. Adams spoke in the calm, steady manner he used on all drunks who began fights inside the tavern; a tone of voice perfectly balanced between threat and empathy. "You're addled with ale, mate, but there's no need for trouble; go back to your ship and sleep it off." Adams pointed the tip of his razor-sharp blade to the nearby White Swan Tavern. "Or try your luck there."

The sailor hesitated. He looked at Adams for several seconds, sizing him up as an opponent. Something he saw made him move his hand away from the hilt of his knife. He gave Adams a mock salute and spat out something in French which Adams didn't understand. Ignoring the taunts of the disappointed crowd, the man disappeared down a lane in the direction of Thieves Hamlet.

As the crowd dispersed, Adams replaced his knife and turned back toward the tavern. He stared for a moment at the large wooden sign above the door. He read the lines just below the colorful bee hive swarming with bees.

The week before, drunken soldiers from the 59th Regiment had used the sign for target practice and, as Anne had reminded him more than once, the several bullet holes dotting the tavern's motto would have to be patched.

Adams pulled his monkey jacket tighter against the morning cold and walked down the lane to the harbor. He balanced himself upon a large stone and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. Amid the Western frigates and brigs and sloops-of-war and clipper ships, the huge Chinese junk was still there. Adams estimated its length at over two-hundred-and-twenty feet and its beam at nearly forty-five feet. A Chinese admiral had commanded her at the head of a fleet of over two hundred imperial war junks. It was far more majestic than any junk Adams had ever seen and was the special prize of Rear-Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, K.C.B., highly decorated Commander of British Naval Forces in the China Seas, who had just recently returned from having given the defiant city of Canton a useless and inconsequential shelling. Not having enough troops to attack by land, Seymour had withdrawn his squadron and returned to Hong Kong to await reinforcements; but his "retreat" had been reported to the Dragon Throne in Peking as a great victory against the "long-nosed barbarians" occupying Hong Kong Island.

The junk was a five-masted, black-and-red vessel with square stern and square bow. The battened sails had been lowered and they clung to the lower reaches of the masts like spiked insects fluttering helplessly in the breeze. Colorful flags still draped the foremast and a pennant with an angry, five-clawed dragon against a background of imperial yellow clung to the mainmast. Adams squinted to examine the deck cannon. If his plan succeeded, before the day was over, he and Captain Weslien would put those cannon to good use.

Adams glanced at his cheap mosaic pocket watch. It was just before noon. He looked across the harbor at Kowloon, then glanced to the west, where, several hours from now, Weslien would be sailing the mail steamer into the harbor. Weslien was a friend and a courageous man but, in his stubborn way, even more foolhardy than Adams. The Chinese were seeking revenge on "foreign-devils" any way they could get it, and, to Adam's way of thinking, sailing a mail steamer from Canton's port of Whampoa to Hong Kong wasn't worth risking one's head.

On the maindeck of the nearest clipper, wealthy men in top hats and frock coats strode about with a proprietary air, and as Adams observed them, he reflected on the irony of his position. He was one of the few people living in Hong Kong who actually liked Hong Kong. Yet he disliked most of the people in it. The snobbish merchants and traders and their equally snobbish wives treated the place like a kind of whore, a variety of low-class prostitute, which was to be exploited but never respected; a convenient place in which to revel in a life cushioned by punkah-pullers and servants and stables and carriages; while grabbing as much money in any way they could. After which they would scamper off to England or to some other foreign shore with their ill-gotten profits to live the lives of cultured ladies and gentlemen. Despite his lack of financial success, Adams was staying; there was an excitement in Hong Kong, a bustling atmosphere and a feeling in the air that almost anything was possible, a mood he had found in no other place in Asia. Since the first day he'd arrived, he'd felt as if an unspoken promise of success had been made to anyone willing to remain in good times and bad. Thus far, the fulfillment of the promise had been well out of his reach, but as long as he could live in Hong Kong on his own terms, this often endangered and always peevish, petulant, gossipy little island community was exactly where he wanted to be.

But that didn't mean an obnoxious Yank couldn't have some fun at the expense of a pompous lymie admiral and haughty British merchants. And, tonight, on board the most magnificent Chinese war junk Adams had ever seen, he and Weslien would provide the town of Victoria with a bit of excitement. Right in the middle of Hong Kong Harbor and at the center of the most powerful naval fleet ever assembled in the East.

CAPTAIN Weslien stood on the foredeck of the postal steamer Thistle, squinted at his timepiece and cursed loudly. It was nearly four. The steamer had been out of Whampoa since late morning and was only now off Second Bar Creek. Because of the unusually shallow water in French River, the mail ship's feed pipes had clogged with mud, and the delay to clear them meant that his vessel would arrive in Hong Kong several hours late. The first time he'd ever been late on the Canton - Hong Kong run. Nothing he could do now except grumble to himself and hope that nothing else occurred to delay him still further.

He watched for a moment as two Chinese fishing trawlers with nets glistening in the brittle, pale sun of late December moved between the Thistle and small, uninhabited islands with sparse vegetation and rocky shores. The heavily patched but still efficient butterfly-wing sails glided past the Thistle's port side. In his long career, Captain Weslien had seen similar picturesque junks with romantic sails become plundering birds of prey as soon as a ready and weak prize came within range, and his eyes were expertly scanning their decks for cleverly camouflaged cannon.

Once he'd decided the junks were not a threat, Captain Weslien shifted his gaze to the poorly repaired funnel of his own steamer. Barely one month before, his vessel had been attacked by Chinese pirates, sending shot crashing through the steamer's funnel and port side. One well-aimed cannon ball had passed an inch above the deck, shattered the door of his cabin, and severed the left leg of Captain Weslien's favorite crewman, a young Siamese who had worked under him in the Siamese navy.

Even through the thick leather soles of his sea boots, Captain Weslien could feel the pounding of the engine and the powerful vibrations through the deck of the ship. With its light cargo of letters, packages and a few odds-and-ends from ship captains near Canton, the Thistle sat high in the Pearl River's muddy water; yet the vessel's battered machinery creaked and groaned at its task as if laboring under the strain of hauling heavy cargo.

As the steamer passed between several small barren islands, the water grew more placid and the diminished shadow of the ship's smoke seemed almost a solid object skimming the surface of the muddy yellow water. One island boasted a few small trees lining the ridge of its bare brown slopes like "celestial" sentries guarding against "outside barbarians." On others, dark brown shrubbery climbed like an advancing army through narrow valleys between cone-shaped granite hills.

Captain Weslien ordered a "Manilla man," to take the wheel and left the upper deck. As he walked toward the engine room hatchway he caught sight of one of the Thistle's few Caucasian passengers, a seriously ill private belonging to the Royal Artillery. The seizure of a vessel by merciless Chinese "braves" posing as passengers was not uncommon in these waters and Captain Weslien wished a few more members of the Royal Artillery had come aboard. He knew that two of his passengers were merchants - one an English dealer in tea and one an American dealer in silk; and he doubted that they would be much use if Chinese pirates made a determined effort to board.

Most of the baggage of the Chinese had been searched, but, despite his suggestion to the ship's owners, not their persons. And he was certain that that was where they would conceal their Chinese choppers. He knew he'd feel much better once they reached Hong Kong. Not that that tiny island offered complete safety either. Barely more than one thousand foreigners on the island and aboard ships in the harbor and about fifty thousand Chinese workers and servants and scum and thieves and spies of the "mandarins." And thanks to the huge ego of Canton's imperious Commissioner Yeh as well as that of Hong Kong's Governor John Bowring, war between China and Britain had broken out. But even the boldest fleets of piratical Chinese junks stayed far out of range of the cannon lining the decks of Western ships-of-the-line anchored in Hong Kong harbor.

Beneath the ship's low beams, Captain Weslien was forced to stoop as he looked down into the engine room and called to his First Engineer, whom he knew to be secretly drinking. Still, Davis did his work well and Captain Weslien had decided that if his 'nipping at the cable' didn't affect his work, he'd say nothing about it. "Stoker keeping up the steam, Mr. Davis?"

Davis moved toward the bottom of the stairs. His friendly face, blackened with grease and sweat, broke into a grin. "Aye, aye, Capt'n. I had ma hands full for a while, but she's runnin' smooth as a whistle now." Davis held up his hand. "I've got ma lucky ring back now, Capt'n. Dinna fash yerse'el."

Captain Weslien had decided not to bring up the subject of his engineer's latest scandal but as long as it was out he pursued it. "Yes, I heard some scuttlebutt that you had a bit of bad joss last time you were in Hong Kong. Something about a theft involving a young lady."

"The cockish wench stole ma ring, she did. And a fine friend of mine she was too."

Davis sat on the bottom stair and wiped sweat out of his eyes with the back of one calloused and filthy hand. "A duly licensed brothel, Capt'n. Duly licensed."

Captain Weslien was amused despite his loathing for the Chinamen's low-class prostitutes. And even if there were any refined looking women among the celestials they had had their feet hideously bound up at an early age to keep them small; a process which insured the poor woman's feet would remain in a grotesque and painful condition forever.

The Captain moved a step down the stairs into the engine room. "Well, I'll tell you what I've heard in Whampoa, Mr. Davis. The Viceroy of the Two Kiang has ordered all brothels in remote vicinities to relocate to the most inhabited and exposed areas of towns and cities. And the entrances are to be only three feet high and one foot wide, so that the poor Chinamen who want to frequent such places will have to incur the odium of crawling on hands and knees into the 'establishments,' as you call them."

Davis sighed. "I dinna ken, Capt'n, why men in authority forget that a man, like a vessel, needs to clear his pipes every now and again and blow off a bit of steam. There's nae shame ta me in crawling up to a beautiful lassy's side, if that's the rule. It's nae how I get there that counts but how I get on once I'm there."

Captain Weslien recognized the panicked voice of the Royal Artilleryman from the direction of the starboard fore-gangway and knew instantly that he had been right in wanting to search the Chinese passengers. Thole pins act as the fulcrum of the oars of the lifeboat and if the pins were missing, there would be no way to row the boat and escape; which meant someone on board had planned a massacre.

Seconds after he'd heard the cry of the Royal Artilleryman, he heard another scream, that of a Chinese: "Sha fan kwei! (Kill the foreign devils!)" Even as he turned, he saw the shadows of several figures along the deck to his right. He had just made a move to run aft in an attempt to reach the cabin and get hold of his revolver when he felt an arm roughly grasp his throat. There was more shock than pain. The cleaver wielded by the first Chinese behind him struck deep into the Captain's neck, severing several vertebrae and piercing his spinal cord. The longknife of the second Chinese missed the spinal column and pierced the left kidney. The Captain was clinically dead before his body had completed its tumbling fall to the floor of the engine room.

Davis stared slack-jawed at the body lying beside him for only a moment and then ran headlong up the stairs. He reached the deck holding only a wrench. He was immediately surrounded by three Chinese armed with knives and cleavers. He lunged at the nearest with the wrench, and felt the blade of a knife enter his back.

As he twisted away he ran forward and grappled with a Chinese "brave" busily engaged in prying a musket from the hands of the dying artilleryman. Davis struck the man with the wrench and managed to snatch the musket away. He aimed it at point blank range and fired. The man's left ear disappeared in a cloud of white smoke and he fell to the deck screaming. At the sound of others approaching, Davis turned to employ the musket as a club but was knocked to the deck by a blow to the head. Despite the pain in his back and head, he managed to fling himself partly onto the gunwale and was about to throw himself into the sea when he felt other sharp pains; then sensations devoid of pain reached his brain. And then nothing.

THE dinghy slipped soundlessly into the starboard shadow of an American barkentine and the two men in the boat held their breath while the black-hulled, four-oared, water-police boat passed to the west. The police boat was rowed silently by dark-faced Tanka Chinese in their green police coats and by Sikh constables in their native dress topped with maroon and black turbans. They passed close enough so that the men in the dinghy could discern the buttons on the coats and the thin gold strips on the turbans. One European constable armed with a percussion cap pistol and a short, broad cutlass sat in the sternsheets as stiffly as a corpse. He stared into the patch of darkness where Adams and Robinson sat frozen in their dingy, gripping blackened oars in muffled oarlocks then, noticing nothing, looked away.

Once the police boat had passed, the men expertly and smoothly glided the dinghy away from the Hong Kong side of the harbor toward where the captured mandarin junk lay anchored astern of the British brig. From Andrew Adams's view on the port side of the dinghy, the brig's slightly swaying bowsprit lantern seemed to be rolling about the dark mass of mountains on the Kowloon side of the harbor, now nearly indistinguishable in the darkness from the night itself.

Adams gripped his oar and passed the bottle of whiskey to the hollow-cheeked, weasel of a man beside him; the man gave him a feral grin and nodded an exaggerated thank you. He somehow managed to keep his filthy cap on as he threw his head back and gulped it down, whiskey dribbling onto his black-and-white whiskers and tattered seaman's jacket.

He pressed his mouth to his sleeve to smother a wracking cough. Adams had heard the same harsh cough in other men he had known in the East. A cough created by love of drink which eventually got even the best of men dismissed from service on even the worst of ships.

A French frigate was anchored near the luxurious East Point bungalow of the colony's leading British company, Jardine-Matheson, and music from a New Year's Eve party on board drifted across the harbor to the two men in the boat. No doubt musicians had been borrowed from the private band aboard Admiral Seymour's 74-gun frigate. Ship captains joined with Hong Kong's elite to dance on the weather deck beneath strings of colored lanterns while, at midships, 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' drank champagne and rum punch. The moon hovered just above the frigate's mizzenmast as if the heavens themselves were holding a ball-shaped lantern aloft in honor of Hong Kong's ruling class.

Adams reflected that men like himself might live in Hong Kong for a hundred years and never receive an invitation to an elite affair or even an acknowledgement from Hong Kong's elite that men such as Andrew Adams existed. He knew from experience that the lines dividing the classes of whites in Hong Kong were as firm as that which divided "foreign devils" from the "celestials."

Along the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, to the west, lights from the town of Victoria lit up the lower reaches of the mountain known as "the Peak." The brightest lights were from the "European" houses spread out above Queen's Road and, to the east, from Murray Barracks. West of the Barracks and well above the brilliantly lit Hong Kong Club they could see the lights of Government House. Adams imagined for a moment the fourth governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Bowring, leaning over a table to make a shot in his private billiard room or entertaining Hong Kong's elite in his saloon. He smiled at the thought of spicing up the governor's evening with an unexpected diversion.

Adams smelled the whiskey breath of the man beside him and knew he would most likely regret bringing Peter Robinson to assist him; for one thing his years of firing cannons in a myriad of sea battles for one navy or another had left him all but deaf. But Weslien still had not arrived and Robinson was the only one foolhardy enough to accompany him; and before he had been relieved of duty for drunkenness he had probably captained more gun crews aboard more ships than anyone in Hong Kong.

Adams knew how much pride Weslien took in never being late on the Canton to Hong Kong run and he feared the worst. But, as Robinson has said, there was nothing they could do about it until morning light; then they'd hire someone to take them upriver. Besides, Adams had heard gup in the tavern that the Chinese junk might be towed by a steam frigate to Macao the following morning. It had to be done tonight.

Adams gave a sigh of relief when at last a bank of clouds passed across the moon and stars, darkening their patch of the harbor. They pulled their oars in perfect unison glided between an American steam-sloop and a British 16-gun paddle steamer. Adams reflected that if New Year's eve called forth extra lights as decoration it also insured that there would be less vigilance among inebriated crewmen who were even now too busy belting out bawdy chanteys to notice the small dingy passing silently through the darkness.

He could discern the outline of the huge junk looming up in the darkness ahead. At the bow, iron flukes had been secured to hardwood anchors with strips of bamboo. As they approached, the men rowed silently under the stern of the junk, most of which had been elaborately carved with geometric designs and decorated with fierce tigers. The raised quarter deck and high poop towered above them.

Adams scanned what he could see of the deck for any sign of a watch. He heard no sounds and saw no movement. Keeping a close eye on the deck of the nearby British brig, where he knew there would be a watch, he reached out and grabbed the junk's makeshift ladder and quickly secured the dinghy. Motioning to Peter to follow, Adams began climbing the rope ladder; just as the striking of ships' bells sounded ten o'clock from nearly every ship of any size in the harbor. Adams gripped the hemp rungs of the ladder and froze in place, his heart beating wildly. The bell at the brig's forecastle joined in sounding two pair of two bells and beneath the clanging he could hear Peter Robinson's violent fit of coughing.

After several seconds of silence, Adams climbed the ladder and slipped quietly over the side. Both men sat on the deck in shadow with their backs against the gunwale listening to the sounds of water lapping its bows and the creaking of its wood. They were so close to the brig they could hear the breeze blowing through her rigging.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness on deck, Adams could see that most of the junk's sails had been damaged by fire, the main mast had been partly blown away and the midships area was cluttered with debris. The British had given her a pounding before capturing her. He wondered if the Chinamen had put up much of a fight or if they had jumped overboard at the sound of the first cannonball.

At a crouch, they moved slowly to the stern and up to the poop deck. Again, Adams threw a quick glance toward the shore; this time he strained to see the lights below the European settlement in the area known as Taipingshan - "Great Peace Mountain." The area inhabited mainly by Chinese and disreputable "Europeans," and known for ramshackle housing, low class brothels, bawdy taverns and gambling and opium dens.

He knew by now nearly everyone in the Bee Hive Tavern would be listening expectantly. Anne Wilkinson, his live-in-lady for the last eleven months, would be serving drinks and angrily denouncing those who had dared Adams to do it. She had been dead set against his taking up the bet; Adams knew she was probably right - it meant a long prison term if he was caught, but if he could bring it off he would be ten quid richer. Plus he would have the satisfaction of having put one over on the Queen's Navy. In the end, a chance to take the mickey out of Hong Kong's "proper society" had proved irresistible.

Adams felt about his monkey bag to ensure that his powder horns and lint stock were secure and then rose to all of his six-foot height. Suddenly, the door of the forecastle on the brig opened. A shaft of light pierced the darkness and fell across the deck of the brig nearly reaching the bow of the junk. A figure walked slowly to the stern of the ship and leaned on the rail, lighting a pipe. As Adams and Robinson sank soundlessly back down into the shadows of the poop the figure called out to the junk. "Hey! McPhee!"

A man rose up from an area of darkness near the junk's bow and gave out a kind of lethargic hiss. "What is it?"

"Just makin' sure you don't get lonely over there. I'm pleased ta' see you're wide awake on New Year's Eve. But I wonder if you even know how many bells have gone."

The man aboard the junk gave forth with a stream of curses and slipped back down out of sight. Sounds of singing and laughter spilled out of the brig's forecastle. After another minute the man on the brig conversed briefly with a seaman on "first" watch and then reentered the forecastle and again all was dark and silent.

Adams reached to his neck and untied his kerchief. He motioned to his companion and slowly, cautiously stepping over nearly invisible tangles of rope and broken bits of bamboo battens, they crossed the deck and moved up behind the figure. The seaman was caught completely unaware. Adams quickly pinned his arms behind him as Robinson gagged him, then together they tied his arms with a double slip knot.

The two men carried the still struggling man to midships and then lowered him into the shadows behind the furled mainsail and what remained of the mainmast. Adams spoke quietly. "Just playing a practical joke, mate. Sorry about the inconvenience. But we'll have to ask you to keep real quiet until we've finished. You do understand, don't you?"

The man angrily tried to speak through his gag. Adams unsheathed the knife at his belt and pressed the blade against the soft skin below the man's Adam's apple. The man grew quiet and nodded. "Good. Now, are you the only deck watch on board?"

Adams looked at the "8-pounders" lining the deck and the round shot nearby. The "eight pounds" referred to the weight of the ball the cannon fired, and he knew that even a poorly constructed Chinese 8-pound cannon would weigh several hundred pounds. The 24-pounders were still in place as well but the 8-pounders were all he needed; besides, it would be all he and Robinson could do to maneuver an 8-pounder. He had been concerned that the British might have already removed the shot and, against whatever odds, he'd have to try to break into the cannon store on the brig. But the British had seen no particular reason to expect any trouble from the Chinamen over one more captured "pirate" junk; especially with several ships-of-the-line of the British Navy anchored in the harbor.

"All right, then, we're going to fire a few of your 8-pounders as a royal salute to Her Majesty's Navy. Can we count on you to keep silent or do we have to send you off to dreamland?" As the man shook his head vigorously, Adams moved off to check the cannon.

Robinson took a long swig of whiskey and stared at the man - almost a boy - before him while fingering the hilt of his knife with his calloused fingers. Over his long period at sea, he had fought both with and against British bluejackets and he had developed very mixed feelings of deep comradeship and bitter enmity toward sailors of Her Majesty's Navy. In his early years in the Orient, he'd on more than one occasion risked his life to save a "bloody tar" from being waylaid by Chinese footpads in Hong Kong or kidnapped by Chinese pirates in the South China Sea, but now - wreck of a man that he was - neither the British nor the American Navy had any use for him and he felt the bitterness of a man who understood exactly in what degrading and undignified way he would end his days.

Robinson looked toward the nearest area of shore and saw the lights of North Barracks, the New Naval Stores and Wellington Battery. He looked toward the east and saw a few lights in the chop boat belonging to the wealthy and powerful tea trader, Richard Tarrant. He knew where to look for the Seaman's Hospital and he tried to spot any lights which might still be burning in its admissions office, but the area was already dark. Over the past few months, Robinson had spent several weeks there and he knew he would soon be there again - permanently. He and any seaman who could afford the seventy-five cents a day were allowed to cough themselves to death in the hospital's public ward.

But the wide eyes and extreme youth of the boy before him evoked memories of all the wide-eyed young men he had known at sea. The two British sailors who had been hanged from the foreyard arms for the "unnatural crime" - only one had begged for mercy but both had had eyes like his: filled with as much fear as there was water in the ocean. And the wide eyes of those who had died in battle at sea. "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God..." And the sight of corpses sliding into their watery grave. To the circling sharks. And he remembered the long list of "D.D.'s" on the books of all the ships he'd sailed - "Discharged - dead." The ghosts who never left him. Except when he drank.

Robinson grew suddenly embarrassed as he realized he had spoken the words aloud. As Adams returned, Robinson stared into the frightened eyes of the callow young man before him and wondered if he too would end his days in one of the same undignified and loathsome ways as the others; as if for a seaman in the lower decks there was any other way. Finally, he poured a bit from the bottle onto the seaman's gag. "Wish us luck, you lymie bastard."

DESPITE his pot belly and bovine nature, the coolie hired to pull the cord of the Bridges's punkah appeared to the Bridges as a young man, probably somewhere in his early 20's. In fact, the "boy" was 39, and two hundred miles to the north, near the fishing village of Swatow, his wife and four children depended on his small salary for their existence. Not to mention his own mother and grandparents. His father had simply disappeared one day while looking for work as a ship's carpenter and it was assumed he had been murdered by a rival clan or kidnapped by those who sold Chinese to foreigners as coolie slaves in foreign lands. Lands from which no one taken had ever returned. His younger brother had been sold to pay a gambling debt, and his two older brothers had perished in nearby Kwangtung Province in one of the endless series of battles between Manchu armies of the Peking government and the Taiping rebel forces fighting them. His brothers had taken a blood oath to rise up and cast out the Manchus, the warrior people from the north who had imposed their will on China since the mid-17th century; but Sammy had never felt the need to rush into battle with anyone. His sister's husband had died of disease and, within months of his funeral, during a prolonged drought when the ricefields were dry and cracked and the wells empty, his sister had simply starved to death. By comparison, pulling the cord of a large calico-covered bamboo fan over the heads of foreign devils in their Hong Kong bungalow while they fed themselves strange food with strange utensils was not unpleasant duty for a Chinese coolie in perilous times.

The closest he had ever come to pronouncing Mrs. Bridges's name correctly was "Mississie Balijahze" and his name was likewise unpronounceable to Mary Bridges. Hence, during one of Mrs. Bridges's light-hearted, that is to say, sherry-induced moods, he had been dubbed "Sammy," after a particularly obtuse and unintentionally humorous brother of Mr. Bridges living in London. As Sammy had especially protruding ears and was walleyed as well, her husband had strenuously objected but to no avail.

He now sat cross-legged on the floor of a narrow hallway just outside the dining room. His bony shoulders and large head were propped against the wall a few feet beneath a sampler with the embroidered slogan: "Give us this Day Our Daily Bread." His arms moved methodically, even rhythmically, with the serenity of a happy Buddha, pulling down on the cord which passed through a hole in the wall and swayed the multi-colored punkah over the dining room dinner table from side to side. He had formerly accomplished his task while crouched in a corner of the dining room but, at Mississy Bridges's insistence, a hole had been drilled into the wall, and Sammy now pulled the punkah from a position where guests would not be forced to notice his distracting and somewhat discomforting presence. Although his right eye turned outward, presenting an abnormal amount of white, his brain had long since learned to ignore the signal from the walleye and to pay attention only to signals sent by his normal eye; hence, the double vision of his childhood days was a thing of the past.

As punkah-pullers go, Sammy was by no means slow-witted, and, as he worked, he spent much of his time staring at, and perhaps to a limited extent, appreciating, a large painting of England's Lake District with comely long-nosed couples in exotic barbarian dress strolling arm in arm just above the bottom edge of the gilded frame. The men holding the women's arms while walking confirmed Sammy's impression that foreign women needed assistance in all things. But the only conclusion he had drawn from the painting was an impression, almost a definite memory, of having visited such a place himself. And, indeed, Sammy's deja vu was more than yet another opium dream. For as foreign families in Hong Kong tended to leave the colony after a few years time, their auctioned possessions often served as decorations or necessities in several houses before finally being shipped back to London or New York or Sydney or simply being cast aside. And, several years before, the exotic Lake District painting had once hung in the living room of one of Sammy's former employers, a ship chandler from Liverpool, whose susceptibility to Hong Kong's many diseases left him resting in peace in the colony's rapidly expanding Colonial Cemetery.

Sammy stared at the crinolines worn by the women in the painting. He had heard many rumors about the bodies of foreign women being so misshapen that they had always to be concealed beneath such huge dresses, and he did his best never to come into close proximity with foreign women.

It was a good twenty minutes after the dinner had begun that Chan Amei, one of the kitchen staff, passing from the kitchen to the dining room with yet another bottle of wine, stooped furtively beside him before continuing quickly on her way. Pulling the punkah was considered a demeaning job by nearly all classes of household servants from cook to chair coolie, which probably explained why Sammy found that Chan Amei had left him a tall, slightly chipped glass of purloined claret nearly half full. A bit of sympathy that 'mississie' need know nothing about. Sammy pulled slowly on the punkah with both well-calloused hands, while somehow managing to hold the glass steady, and began sipping - thus laying the groundwork for the abrupt and memorable ending of what would otherwise have been a very commendable, but rather ordinary, Hong Kong dinner party.

MUSCLES straining, Adams and Robinson heaved together on the hand spike and levered the last cannon into position, then stepped back and looked over their handiwork.

Once they had severed the rattan ropes lashing the 8-pounders to the gunwales, into each barrel they had rammed a gunpowder cartridge, a piece of wadding, the round shot itself, and a second piece of wadding. As was the case with all Chinese junks, the cannons themselves were mounted on solid blocks of wood without any method of adjustment for accuracy. No elevation; no depression. It was all right with Adams. He neither expected nor wanted the cast iron eight-pound round shots to reach any ship in the harbor; this was just for fun; and for ten quid.

Robinson had filled each touch hole with powder from their horns, inserted his priming wire through each cannon's hole, and punctured the cartridges. Together they brought out the slow burning cord on their lint stocks which Adams lit with a Lucifer match. All that remained was to light the powder leading to the touch holes. Robinson turned to Adams and smiled a kind of leer. He raised his lint stock high in salute and spoke in a mock-serious, raspy whisper. "Ready for battle, Cap'n."

Adams stepped over the breech rope and tackles and debris and flung the hand spike over the rail. He watched it disappear into the water below with as little sound as a jumping fish might make. His muscles ached from maneuvering the cannon and the skin on his hands was black and scraped. For just a moment he allowed himself to think of the likely consequences if they were caught but, as Anne had told him the first night they'd met in the tavern, there was something inside him that couldn't resist accepting a challenge. The more dangerous, the longer the odds, the better. He had soon learned that more than anything else he might have in common with the Chinese, it was their love of gambling. Anyplace. Anytime. On anything. So be it. He turned to Peter Robinson and raised his fist. "Then let's do it, you besotted barnacle-back! Let's show these pompous colonial bastards that Yanks know a thing or two about throwing iron."

The brig and its prize junk were anchored somewhat away from other ships in the harbor and Adams had no reason to doubt that a bit of "thrown iron" would cause no real damage; besides, they had been careful to aim the cannons away from the only vessel in sight, the permanently moored and barely visible chop boat of Richard Tarrant. But as the only nearby lamps were those on the brig, neither of the men had noticed the nearly invisible outline of the small boat lying in darkness a bit toward the east.

That very same small boat claimed the attention of a lone figure on board the Jardine family's frigate. Sipping his green-tea punch as far from the polka music as he could distance himself, the elderly head of Messrs. Bowra & Company leaned on the rail and stared out into the darkness. He was still seething at the treatment he had received at the hands of condescending, quill-pushing government officials the previous afternoon. Despite his repeated arguments, they had insisted first to his Chinese compradore, then to his Portuguese clerk and finally, personally to him, that the government magazine was full and they could not in any way assist Bowra & Co. with its storage problems.

And so it was that Messrs. Bowra & Company's small powder boat had just that morning been loaded with 60 kegs of gunpowder and, for safety's sake, been anchored a good distance away from other ships in the harbor. Unmanned and unseen in the darkness, it was now a mere cannon shot away from the captured junk.

.......................................................................................................................

"IT is beyond my comprehension..." Those at the dining table politely waited until Richard Tarrant enjoyed his final bite of quail before learning exactly what was beyond his comprehension. "...how our governor can reduce our police force - mockery though it may be - when rumors of Chinese pirate fleets preparing to attack Victoria are reported almost daily!"

Mary Bridges was the small gathering's hostess, and as she poised her fork over the remainder of her egg-shaped quail - its clear, golden outer layer of port wine jelly made luminous by the light of the oil lamp and candles - she worried where such a remark might lead. Her husband, William, had guided the conversation to the burning of the Canton merchant houses by Chinese mobs in mid-December to the coming races at Happy Valley but somehow Richard Tarrant and his wife would again return to the subject of Hong Kong's police force as relentlessly as the colony's mosquitoes incessantly searched for blood. And while he obviously had total contempt for the force, his wife, Daffany, seemed almost fascinated by it.

Not unlike many other women in Hong Kong, Mary Bridges had always felt a mild dislike toward Daffany Tarrant but she had to admit she was attractive and well-turned out in her resplendent off-the-shoulder red-and-white silk crinoline even if the dip in her neckline was decidedly more than fashionably low.

Mary Bridges reflected on the gup she had heard about her dinner guest whispered on walks at Scandal Point after services at St. John's Cathedral, slyly alluded to in Mrs. Lemon's Millinery shop on Queen's Road and once, even on the verandah of the Hong Kong club. Nothing was ever spoken outright but the meaning alluded to was clear: Daffany Tarrant had a lover. She was at least 15 years younger than her husband, and, according to those whose business it was to know about such things, was having a passionate affair with a man at least ten years younger than herself.

Mary Bridges glanced at Charles May as he leaned slightly backward to allow a Chinese servant to place a small silver tureen before him. His indulgent smile indicated he was not yet ready to respond to an attack on his handling of the colony's police force. At least not an attack delivered by one of the colony's most important businessmen. Not yet. But as he began sipping his consomme, she noticed his slight but sudden stiffening. She rather liked Charles May. He was even leaner than her own husband, nearly the same age and with his thinning brown hair and pale, almost chalky, complexion he might have - at a distance, at least - passed for her husband's brother. Of course, even Mary Bridges would have to admit that there the resemblance ended. Her own husband was every bit as shrewd and clever - "unscrupulous and social climbing" some might say - as an ambitious Hong Kong barrister had to be whereas Superintendent of Police May seemed completely direct and uncomplicated in his manner. She was uncertain if he was a particularly good superintendent or not, but she would be the first to admit that if there was one thing Hong Kong needed, it was a few more unpretentious and straight-forward people.

As Superintendent of Police, he had been twelve years in Hong Kong and, though doing his best, was still referred to in the press as the head of the "disorganized group of lawless, inebriated elements who call themselves a police force." He had once been with London's Scotland Yard and as Mary Bridges observed Charles May's wife, a quiet but intelligent woman with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, she wondered if Harriet May dearly wished she and her husband had never left England.

She had still not quite gotten over the shock of the Mays and the Tarrants actually accepting their dinner invitations and this made her a bit cross toward both Richard Tarrant and Charles May. Richard Tarrant was a member of the Legislative Council and was the senior resident partner at an agency house specializing in exporting tea; the very same house her husband had brilliantly and successfully defended in a legal action filed against it by a former partner. During the trial, the two men had worked well together and Tarrant had often praised her husband's financial acumen as well as his ability as a barrister, but the dinner invitation had been issued with no expectation that someone in Tarrant's exalted position would ever accept. True, her own husband had been briefly appointed as Acting Attorney-General when the Attorney-General was away on leave, but everyone knew that those appointments were less a reflection of William Bridges's standing in the community and more a necessity because of the lack of qualified barristers among Hong Kong's small "European" population.

Richard Tarrant, on the other hand, was the product of, above all else, old family money and intimate relationships with all the right politicians in London. As for her own husband, neither his Oxford education, nor Middle Temple background, nor his honorary Doctor of Civil Law nor, for that matter, any amount of temporary government positions would ever place him on Tarrant's level, and it was quite clear that any seat William Bridges ever held on the Legislative Council would be both brief and "provisional."

And she was equally puzzled over the presence of Charles May and his wife; except for the opposite reason. Charles May had ably assisted her husband in recovering silver that had been stolen from his law office on Queen's Road and in catching the thief as well, but it was not to be expected that he would actually accept an invitation issued out of gratitude. Surely he and his wife understood that in Hong Kong people from different social classes did not mix socially; it was simply not done. Mary Bridges thought of the irony: their expected guests - those in their own social circle - had declined to attend while those above and below them in social rank unexpectedly accepted. True - the Mays and Tarrants were getting along together as might be expected: like a snake and a mongoose. But for the first time in her six-year stay in Hong Kong, Mary Bridges was attending a dinner party in which members of the upper class, middle class and lower-middle class were dining together. It was, for Mary Bridges, something incredible, almost indecent. And she was beginning to feel an as yet ill-defined premonition if not a firm belief that she would regret it. Of course, as Mary Bridges was well aware, because of the enormous circumference of women's crinolines, had everyone invited actually accepted, there might well have been insufficient room around the dinner table for all her guests. And that might have proved even more embarrassing.

Mary Bridges pretended not to notice as Richard Tarrant surreptitiously peered through his gold spectacles at the ornately decorated mantel clock and then at his pocket watch. She decided he wanted to give the impression he would rather be elsewhere; or perhaps he simply wanted to remind his hosts that he had magnanimously and inexplicably favored their invitation over that of the Jardines and the New Year party aboard their frigate. But she also knew her husband could use some well-connected introductions from Richard Tarrant; and, in his pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, William Bridges, like others in constant pursuit of money in Hong Kong, would no doubt accept such slights without protest.

She decided Charles May needed rescuing from attacks on his police force and therefore on him, but that changing the subject too abruptly would be too obvious; but as something must be done she settled on asking an innocuous question about the subject under discussion. However, before Mary Bridges could open her mouth, Daffany Tarrant spoke again. "The police will increase in numbers and in efficiency, one hopes." Mrs. Tarrant's smile reminded Mary of a Malay kris she had once seen which a native run amok had used to hack to death a British rubber planter outside Kuala Lumpur. But in this case, May's response was briefly delayed by the ships' bells sounding in the harbor.

Charles May smiled pleasantly. "Believe me, madam, I do the best I can. Many of my men are simply ex-sailors and some are actually fugitives who have jumped ship. But you may rest assured I impress upon them that it is the job of the police to request passes of any suspicious-looking persons. And all Chinese at night must carry lanterns or else-"

Richard Tarrant interrupted. "Balderdash! You can walk through Victoria any night you choose, Mr. May, and I will wager you will find Chinamen parading the streets with lanterns, and even more without lanterns. If only our police would ask to see their passes!"

Mary Bridges had no faith in any of the so-called policemen in Hong Kong, be they British, American, Australian, Portuguese from Macau, Lascars from India, Malay from the Straits Settlements or local Chinese. Each was as wretched as the other. But she was, after all, the hostess, and she at last interceded to protect her guests from attack and her party from disaster. "How do you find the soup, Mr. Tarrant?"

Tarrant's anger immediately dissipated. "Excellent, my dear, Mrs. Bridges. It is truly delicious."

In the polite expressions of agreement which followed, William Bridges glanced up at a flying insect, and the erratic motion of the punkah itself which caught his attention. One moment it was flying faster than ever and then there was almost no movement at all. He decided if the "boy" found it difficult to properly pull a punkah, if he was that useless, he would have to be dismissed.

His thoughts on punkah-pulling were interrupted by Richard Tarrant again glancing at his pocket watch and clearing his throat. His flushed face deepened as if attempting to match his amethyst ring. "Why Sir John Bowring does not form all able-bodied men into a special constabulary instead of simply increasing our inefficient police force and-"

Daffany Tarrant placed her hand on her husband's and squeezed. Tarrant made a hurried apology for raising his voice and, before continuing, gave his undeniably beautiful wife an adoring smile. As he turned away from his wife, Tarrant's expression altered from one of adoration to one of indignation and he would no doubt have expounded still more on the many flaws of Sir John Bowring had Charles May not been summoned to the front door by a servant. It was then that William Bridges rose to the occasion while finishing his second glass of Beaujolais and related a genuinely amusing story which did much to add a bit of levity to the atmosphere at the table.

As Mary Bridges joined in the laughter she felt genuine pride in her husband's ability to entertain but was by no means blind to his many traits which others found disagreeable: His expressed desire to be addressed as "Doctor" Bridges despite the honorary nature of his degree; his unscrupulous financial dealings and aggressive pursuit of clients; his high rates of interest for money-lending carried on even when he was in government service; and his sycophantic behavior toward anyone in a position of power. Besides, if he hadn't had the good fortune to attend Exeter College with the nephew of a former governor of Hong Kong, William Bridges would most likely be barely surviving as one more barrister among London's many struggling barristers. Because she never confronted her husband or questioned his methods, William Bridges mistook his wife's silence as acquiescence in the social contract, but the truth might have surprised him: Mary Bridges tolerated his many character defects not because she wished to climb socially, but because she genuinely loved him. And she would have loved him had they been poor.

As the laughter died down, Charles May returned ashen-faced to the room. "Mrs. Bridges, you must forgive my bad manners but my assistant, Mr. Smithers - the gentleman at the door - has brought some most distressing news. I'm afraid we have a tragedy on our hands. I must return to my office at the Central Police Station at once."

It was Richard Tarrant who broke the silence. "Well, do go on, Mr. May. Not another drunken seaman carried off by Chinamen, I would hope."

After a brief silence, Richard Tarrant stuttered over the word he was attempting to pronounce. "Found?"

"Yes, sir. Apparently, so-called 'mandarin braves' posing as Chinese passengers surprised and overpowered the crew."

Daffany Tarrant leaned slightly forward and spread her hands flat on the table as if about to push herself up but remained in her seat. She glanced at her husband and then back to May. Her face seemed to have been drained of blood. "But surely everyone on board...everyone on board was released?"

"I'm afraid not, madam. Some of the Chinese crew were released unharmed but it looks as if all Europeans aboard the Thistle were massacred." May looked genuinely concerned about Daffany Tarrant's health. "Perhaps you'd better lie down, Mrs. Tarrant." Daffany Tarrant appeared not to have heard him, but May's suggestion seemed to galvanize the others into standing.

Even as the five people around the table rose as one, the first of the junk's six cannons was fired. Except for Charles May turning in the direction of the harbor, no one moved. Then the second cannon was fired, and, after several seconds, the third. In the several second pause between the third and the fourth, William Bridges managed to speak. "What in the devil is all that about?"

The shock of the Thistle massacre as well as the sudden cannon fire had disoriented those in the room and, for several seconds, rendered them immobile. Rumors of a determined Chinese attack on Hong Kong had been bandied about for months and, no doubt, that possibility now entered their thoughts. Response to such rumors had always been met with a defiant, "They wouldn't dare!" But given the unsettled conditions of Southern China and the hatred of mandarin officials toward the foreign devils who had seized Hong Kong Island, who really knew what the 'celestials' would dare? Yet after the fourth cannon had sounded everyone in the room was collected enough to follow Charles May in the direction of the verandah overlooking the harbor.

In the Hong Kong of the period, however, there seemed to have been an unwritten but invariable rule that, not unlike explosions along a string of Chinese firecrackers, one disaster would always follow another. And, sure enough, as the second cannon fired, Sammy sprang to his feet. This particular night's opium dream had taken the form of his childhood aboard a junk and the cool evenings spent in the South China Sea when the only sound was the creaking of the China fir as the junk rocked in the swells of the sea.

Unfortunately, the combination of opium and wine he had consumed, combined with the sound of cannon, had conjured up a nightmarish vision of outside barbarians boarding his father's junk and massacring all on board. By the sound of the third cannon, in his panic to escape the carnage, Sammy was hurling himself blindly through the hallway and into the dining room, eyes wide and pigtail flying wildly behind him. Presenting a vision of some kind of celestial dervish, Sammy first spotted William Bridges who had the presence of mind to hold out his arms in an attempt to calm his punkah puller. But as Bridges's complexion was unusually white, in Sammy's mind the foreign-devil ghost-dealer in coolie slaves who had most likely taken his father was now beckoning to him as well.

Sammy headed straight for the stone china, glittering silverware, delicate porcelain, cut glass flip cups, blown glass whale oil lamp, sperm whale's head candles, past a swooning Mary Bridges and leapt (in his opium dream, at least) overboard - or, more precisely, onto the Damask table linen of Mary Bridges's carefully decorated mahogany dining table. Although the table was perfectly suitable for dinner parties, it was a Regency-style single pedestal type with a tilt top and, as such, it was no match for the belly-flop plunge of a panicked Chinese punkah-puller.

According to accounts of the evening later in circulation at the Hong Kong Club, Sammy's lunge had occurred an instant before the final cannon shot sounded and just seconds before an enormous explosion shook Hong Kong harbor and the entire town of Victoria; and according to such gossip, known as "gup" at the time, the white shell of Charles May's dessert, fully loaded with fruit and cream, had shot up like an errant cannon ball and lodged between Daffany Tarrant's not inconsiderable breasts, giving rise to unkind speculation at such obvious symbolism. Only William Bridges himself received any direct injury from the disaster in the form of a cut finger from the shards of a smashed wine glass. It would be several days before Mary Bridges spoke of the incident, and when she did, it was to make it quite clear that she never wished to speak of the incident. The slightest allusion to the broken plates and glasses, the badly damaged balloon-back dining chairs which had miraculously made the long voyage out to Hong Kong without a scratch, the stained crinolines and frock coats, the spilled food - all was enough to cause her to sink once again into the shock and embarrassment of that evening. A shock and embarrassment so profound that heavy doses of Wray's Tonic Mixture, a liberal amount of Holloway's pills, and half a bottle of Ayer's Cherry Pectoral seemed incapable of alleviating it.

EVEN as Adams and Robinson rushed toward the gangway of the junk to make good their escape, everything that had been above the water line on the powder boat, and most below, disintegrated somewhere inside a brilliant golden fireball of flame and smoke, and the power of the explosion slammed them forcefully down onto the debris-laden deck. Adams knew it was the loudest sound he had ever heard. He felt as if, along with the headache and the ringing in his ears, heated lead weights were being forced into each of his eardrums.

He rolled over onto his back and found that the moon, the stars and the shore lights were completely obscured by the thick swirls of gunpowder. He felt a sharp, stinging pain in his shoulder and reached up to extract a long, thin slice of bamboo deeply embedded in his muscle. He gripped the bamboo, gritted his teeth and yanked it out. Blood immediately spurted out, soaking his striped woolen shirt and baggy trousers.

Peter Robinson pushed himself onto his feet and, stumbling sideways, felt about his body to make sure nothing was missing. To Adams, he appeared as a tipsy sailor might look engaged in a bizarre and slightly humorous dance. As Robinson began brushing himself off, he tried to discern other ships through the smoke. "By God, Andrew, I'd say one of our irons scored a hit." Then he saw the blood and reached down to pull Adams to his feet. "Are you hurt?"

Adams felt he was seeing everything in the midst of some kind of nightmarish vision of hell. Everything seemed out-of-focus and moving in an unnatural slow motion. It was as if the explosion had sent him plummeting to the bottom of the sea and made him a disinterested observer of events swirling around him. He fought to collect his senses. He could see that Robinson's muttonchop whiskers were blacker than before and his face was streaked with dirt and grime. He knew his own fringe beard, which framed his face from under his chin up to his ears, must look the same. The sharp reek of gunpowder filled the air. "Just a splinter. See to the sailor."

The men untied the frightened sailor and removed the gag. Adams pressed the kerchief over his own shoulder, passed it quickly under his armpit and tied it. Drops of blood streaked down his arm onto the tattoo of a schooner-in-full-sail on his left forearm. As they made their way over the rail and down the ladder, they could glimpse excited sailors crowding at the stern of the brig. They were shouting to McPhee as McPhee shook off his daze and shouted back and pointed toward their dinghy. A boatswain's pipe shrilled in the darkness.

The men grabbed the oars and began rowing shakily. "Pull for the shore for all you're worth, Robbie. If we can stay inside this smoke we might be able to lose them."

When it was obvious they were rowing against each other, Robinson shouted at him. "Which shore?!"

Adams spared a second to look toward the shore of mainland China. It too was lost in thick layers of pungent, sulfuric smoke. "Have you forgotten the Chinamen own Kowloon? I don't even have my pistol with me. They'll cut off our heads!"

"What do you think Admiral Seymour will do, mate? Give us medals? We must have hit a powder boat!"

Robinson cursed the empty bottle. "Never did a man need a dose from the foretopman's bottle as now." He struggled to row in unison with Adams but splashed the boat with water. "How can we be sure we didn't hit the munitions room of a ship?"

Adams could feel the pain in his shoulder growing worse. The kerchief was imbued with blood and drops were spattering his sea boots like rain. He tailored his speech pattern to his rowing. "Because if we did that we're going to hang."

Robinson shouted into Adam's nearly useless ear. "Andrew, me lad, I think this time we've sailed a bit too close to the wind. Those boatswains' pipes are calling up all hands. If you've got any gods, pray to them now. For both of us."

Adams strained to see shore lights. "Let's try for Bonham Strand. We might be able to sneak ashore there." Although the smoke was slowly dissipating, Adams could hear excited voices and boatswain's whistles floating across the water before he could see the boats. He knew the boats of each ship would be out looking for them: gigs, cutters, pinnaces, jolly boats - all filled with enraged American, English, Danish and French sailors, all with one thought in mind. Excited voices in speakers' trumpets notified any seaman within hearing range that they were looking for two Americans in a dingy.

The water around them reflected a light steadily growing in intensity, spurring Adams to row with every ounce of strength he had. When the light grew still brighter, Adams turned, expecting to see the bow of a ship's boat catching up with him. What he saw was worse than anything he could have imagined. Sparks from a cannon's muzzle had ignited the wood of the junk and burning fragments from the explosion had landed on the junk's mat sails. Admiral Seymour's prize, his recently captured five-masted, mandarin Chinese junk - the ornately-carved, former imperial flagship of the celestial navy - was ablaze. Then and there Andrew Adams knew two things: First, he should have asked for more than ten quid. Second, Robinson was right; they should have tried for Kowloon. ..................

A few minutes after she heard the ships' bells ring out ten o'clock, about the time Adams and Robinson were tying up McPhee, Anne Sutherland finally gave up trying to discern Andrew Adam's dinghy in the darkness. She turned away from the harbor and began walking back to the Bee Hive Tavern. As she adjusted her shawl and walked up the narrow dark lane that led to Queen's Road, she pressed her violet-scented handkerchief to her nose. The smells along the shore as well as those in the alley never failed to make her stomach churn. Every night it was the same: dead fish, rotten food, malodorous sewage and worse. But tonight she was as disgusted with herself as she was with the foul odors of Hong Kong's notorious Taipingshan district.

Why she had to fall in love with any man, let alone one who took dares at any odds from friend and foe alike, was beyond her. What good would ten pounds do Andrew Adams if he was rotting in a cell at the central police station? After San Francisco, Anne had promised herself never again to fall for anyone. Especially a man like Andrew Adams. She would use her good looks and womanly wiles to build up a nest egg and settle down somewhere as a respectable woman. She would then meet respectable gentlemen, for whom she had an elaborate tale prepared about a non-existent elder brother who, having succumbed to yellow fever, (or dysentery, or from being wounded in the Mexican War - she would decide that later), had left her his modest but untainted inheritance. And yet here she was again working in yet another low-class tavern in the sleazy section of yet another port and helplessly in love with the same kind of man. Except now she was closer to thirty than to twenty. Not all the men who had pursued her over the years were without prospects, but none with even a dash of respectability had quickened her pulse or stirred any emotional response within her. She had never understood why she was so mesmerized by handsome, penniless, devil-may-care, ne'er-do-wells who would happily abandon her the first time the master of a decent sailing ship agreed to take them somewhere across the world. Somewhere where they would no doubt find another easy mark just like her.

Lost in thought, she was almost in sight of the first tavern, The White Swan, when she noticed a shadow fall across the end of the lane. She had heard the rumor that a Western prostitute had been found brutally murdered in a lane leading from nearby Lyndhurst Terrace, and for just a few seconds, she froze. When she looked up, two Chinese policemen with wide conical hats, nankeen trousers and muskets almost as tall as they were, blocked her path. The first, standing as tall as his height would allow him, looked her over suspiciously and challenged her. "Who go there?"

Anne was startled out of her thoughts and angry that the celestials had seen her fear. "Who do you think go here, you bloody fool? I'm a barmaid at the Bee Hive. Haven't you got anything better to do than to bother innocent residents trying to make a living? Now shove off!"

The Chinese conversed rapidly with each other in their sing-song Cantonese dialect and began laughing. The one who had spoken gave her a smirk and spoke again. He pointed to her round hat with its lace curtain. "So vely solly, Missie, but my t'ink you Chinee lady. Hat b'long you same-same b'long Hakka."

Anne thought of the plaited bamboo disc, edged with a black cotton shade worn by Hakka women and realized in the darkness one might bear a slight resemblance to the other. Still, how dare a Chinaman suggest her new Cranbourne street bonnet, the latest in fashion, just off the boat from London, made her look like a celestial!

Anne walked angrily past them, allowing the flounces of her crinoline to brush against the more talkative of the two. She passed the White Swan Tavern, Briton's Boast Tavern, the Bombay Tavern, the Neptune Tavern, Uncle Tom's Tavern and paused at the door of the Bee Hive Tavern at the corner of Queen's Road and Gough Street. The sound of raucous shouts and drunken laughter spilled out from the taverns in the area. The tavern quarter was tumultuous every night but she knew on New Year's eve she could expect the worst.

She reached into her fringed and beaded black satin purse, retrieved a small hand mirror that had once belonged to her mother, and began freshening her rouge. She used her index finger to redden first one cheek and then the other. Yes, she knew men still found her attractive. She was complimented on each of her attributes at least a dozen times a week. The small, heart-shaped mouth, the dark green eyes, the auburn hair, the milky complexion, the fetching figure. But how much faith was a woman to place in the compliments of men just off a long ship's voyage? Men who had been without women for months if not years?

Still, when she needed it, she knew she also possessed a valuable repertoire of well-practiced feminine wiles which included, at a moment's notice, a winning smile or a come-hither glance or a sympathetic frown or a way of walking which sent her crinoline swaying back and forth, with just enough of a tilt to inadvertently reveal glimpses of her lovely ankles. Why then wasn't she in turn attracted to a man of substance; a man with character; or at least someone who didn't lie with every breath. Like Andrew Adams.

She cast one last glance toward the portion of the harbor she could see from the doorway then opened the door and stepped inside. The smoke of cheap tobacco in clay pipes, sounds of drunken laughter and indignant cursing and the smell of stale beer, cheap whale oil and open spittoons immediately assailed her. Men and women sat on stained wooden chairs crowded about brass-edged wooden tables covered with glasses and bottles, pipes and purses, knife-engraved drawings and spilled beer - members of each group shouting to one another in the din. Around them, except for a space beside the bar itself, oil lamps, candles and framed paintings of magnificent sailing ships locked in battle lined the walls. A kettle full of water for tea hung on a hook over the fire in the small brick-lined fireplace. The mantle above it was crowded with candlesticks and steins and the model of a 44-gun frigate given to the tavern by a talented but destitute American sailor in exchange for food and drink. The frigate was the pride and joy of the tavern owner but it had been damaged in a recent bar brawl. Anne worried that when the man eventually returned from tending his brothels in Macau, he might just decide to fire them both.

Affixed to the wall in the reserved space near the bar were handbills advertising newly arrived goods; schedules of arrivals and departures of merchant vessels; notices to mariners of space available aboard ships for able-bodied seamen; warnings to shipmasters of treacherous shoals and other dangers of the deep with longitudes and latitudes provided; invitations to sermons from the Seaman's Chapel at nearby Jervois Street and crude but painstakingly written letters from sailors at sea to women working in the Bee Hive Tavern, women already in the arms of other men. Another announcement of yet another drunken and inattentive sailor being robbed by Chinamen had been placed there by Superintendent of Police, Charles May, in the vain hope that someone heading back to a ship or off to his boardinghouse might pay some attention or take some precaution if he were sober enough to do so.

Beside a table near the door, with his huge glowing red face framed between his black leather cap and his Vandyke beard, Ian McKenna accompanied his own spirited playing on his prized rosewood and leather concertina. It was his way of cadging drinks. Resplendent in his red-and-green kerchief knotted about his thick neck, his coarse, long-sleeved green shirt, double-breasted waistcoat and checkered corduroy trousers, he spread his enormous beer belly above the table where two drunken soldiers of the 59th regiment were pawing two completely sober and very enterprising Englishwomen. While the women drank their "ladies drinks" and listened attentively to the stories of the soldiers, Ian McKenna sang his heart out in his rich baritone, moving in mid-stream from moderato to allegro:

As McKenna ended his playing with a forceful closing of the concertina's bellows between his huge hands, a shout from one of the sailors at another table rose above the din. "Anne, where did you run off to? Come over and join the party."

Anne scowled at the sailor and continued on toward the bar. "Can't you see I'm a workin' girl? And what decent, church-going, and very proper lady like myself would want to find herself at your table, anyway?"

Among the taunts and laughter of his mates the sailor bent over, spat a brown stream of tobacco into a spittoon beneath the table and then yelled again. "Hey, belay that kind of talk or, by God, we'll head on over to the White Swan. The ladies there know how to treat visitors with utmost court'sy!"

Anne shouted now from behind the bar. "You'll do nothing of the sort; from what I hear, you'll not even dare step inside; at least not until you've paid up your bill there with something more than a flying fore-topsail."

In response to Anne's accurate description of how sailors often sail away without paying their bills, an even louder barrage of laughter rang out from the table and Anne abruptly turned her back to the men. She smoothed a white muslin apron over her pink muslin crinoline and began washing and wiping glasses and mugs.

Ian McKenna placed his concertina on the counter and studied the slate near the figurehead marked "Bill of Fare." All prices were quoted in the currency most accepted in Hong Kong and coastal China, i.e., Mexican silver dollars which had been minted in Spain's South American possessions and shipped into East Asia by way of Manila. Without question, this had been his best New Year's eve take ever; more than enough for dinner and beer and repaying debts, and if the sailors would stay drunk enough and generous enough his tips might buy him a Yorkshire pudding or some of Anne's incomparable mince pie before the night was over. "You're touchy tonight, Anne, darlin'."

"And why shouldn't I be? You and the other fools in this tavern can sing and laugh and joke while sending him off to get himself killed or captured for ten pounds. And how does he run this tavern from prison? Have you thought about that?!"

Like many sailors who had been denied fresh food for months, even years, at a time, Ian McKenna's thoughts had actually been more on homemade food, and the thought of losing out on the mince pie - the chopped apples, spices, suet, raisins and meat - brought forth his sweetest and most charming Irish accent, the plaintive, Irish lilt Andrew Adams had once compared to a welcome wind kissing a ship's sails.

"I'll be havin' none of your 'Anne luv's' this evening, thank you, Mr. McKenna. You and your friends had just better hope no harm comes to Andrew. If it does, you've 'ad your last drink in the Bee Hive."

Anne looked up as the door burst open and two drunken American policemen stumbled into the tavern, barely able to hold onto their muskets. As the policemen passed a table, a British seaman stretched his leg out. The first policeman stumbled over the man's boot, lost his balance and fell heavily to the floor. In the few seconds it took the American to stand up and face off with his British antagonist, Anne grabbed the wooden belaying pin kept behind the bar and quickly rushed in between the two policemen. She placed her other hand firmly on the barrel of the policeman's musket, keeping it pointed to the floor. "Not in here you don't. If you have a problem, then, by God, outside is the place to settle it."

The American stared first at his opponent and then at the belaying pin. He handed his musket to his companion. "Damn right we'll settle it outside." With that, he turned and made for the door. Amidst cries of, "Show the bloody Yank a thing or two," and "put the limejuicer's rigging lights out," the British sailor and his friends also made a rush for the door. The American policemen and their supporters reached it first and angrily flung it open - just in time to hear, from somewhere just to the north of the town, the most thunderous explosion anyone in the colony's taverns had ever heard.

While nearly everyone from the Bee Hive rushed out into the street and down to the harbor, Anne stood completely still, the belaying pin dangling at her side. Her face drained of color and she seemed almost not to breathe. Ian McKenna closed his concertina and made his way slowly out the door of the tavern knowing full well there would be no mince pie for him at the Bee Hive for a very long time.

In the early morning darkness, Andrew Adams could just make out the fat bloated rat as it scampered cautiously about the cold, damp floor of the cell and made its way closer to his wound. When Adams painfully raised his leg as far as the shackles would allow, the rat dashed back into the fireplace. The stench in the close air of the crowded cell was overpowering. Sweat, urine, vomit, odors from the commode bucket, and the putrefaction of his own wound made him too nauseous to sleep. The coughing and snoring and muttering of other prisoners and the almost constant sobbing of an emaciated Chinese prisoner desperate for his opium pipe would have kept him awake in any case.

Adams could hear the drunken sailors returning to their ships after a night on the town, their loud voices raised in laughter, anger or in song as they staggered along Queen's Road; and the mid-watch crews of ships in the harbor ringing out the old year.

The only door to the cell was on the Queen's Road side, just a few feet from Adams's head. Where the weak shaft of light streaming through the wall aperture ended, it illuminated several prostate forms, and over the sleeping men he could see the slow, tentative movement of cockroaches. He turned to disentangle himself from John Robinson's outstretched arm and thought of the bad joss that had befallen him; or, rather, that he had brought on himself.

They had actually managed to escape the ships' boats and jump to shore just west of Gilman's Bazaar when, as luck would have it, several Indian police constables had materialized out of the darkness. With no money readily available to offer as a bribe, Adams had tried to talk their way past them, first with humor and then with indignation, but once the Lascars had raised their musket barrels, he knew the game was up. He also knew it was much better to be incarcerated in a Hong Kong police station than to have been captured by angry sailors and placed in a ship's brig under the custody of the British Navy. Although it was possible Admiral Seymour might yet decide to arrange for them to spend some time aboard his flagship. Still, when all was said and done, no one other than himself had been hurt and, without question, it had been one hell of an explosion.

After nearly an hour of being interrogated by Charles May and his assistant superintendent, they had been placed in a cell to await their fate. Charles May had impressed him. Even when being baited, the man had never once lost his temper and had even prevented his assistant superintendent from striking him. Once May had made up his mind that Adams and Robinson were acting out a bet, and that the explosion had been accidental, he seemed anxious to deal with other problems. May had left instructions with the head turnkey to have his wound tended to. Instead, the turnkey indulged his streak of sadism by squeezing Adams's shoulder and grinning. Adams had knocked him down and out with one well-placed fist to the man's jaw. But his assistants had manacled him and watched with satisfaction as the revived turnkey took his revenge in the form of a savage beating with his truncheon.

It was just before dawn that Adams understood what it was that preoccupied Charles May. He had heard one of the prisoners speak of the fate of the Thistle. Captain Weslien had been one of the regulars in the Bee Hive and one of the best friends Adams had ever had in the East. He was remembering the adventures he had had with Weslien in Siam when Peter Robinson's voice startled him from his thoughts.

"Awake and ready for what comes, Peter. Though I am damn sorry I got you into this."

"Belay that kind of talk, mate. Thanks to you, I'll probably have ballads sung about me. And there is one thing in our favor so far."