Chapter 6

Choundas,” Twigg told them a week later. “One Guillaume Choundas. His ship, Poisson D’Or, has been out here in the Far East for the last two years. Coincidence? I think not. That’s about the time the first ships began to disappear.”

“I see, sir,” Captain Ayscough nodded. “Awfully young to be a ship’s captain, though. What more do we know of him?”

“Come now, Captain Ayscough,” Twigg sneered, “how many fond daddies get their sons made post-captain at the same age most young officers could only expect their lieutenancy! Admiral Rodney made his sixteen-year-old boy post into a fine frigate soon as he arrived in the West Indies on his last commission.”

“Let me ask again, sir, what do we know of him?” Ayscough retorted with a growl. Twigg had not become any easier to swallow in the past months, and his harshness grated upon their captain most of all, forced as he was into the closest familiarity with him.

“I mean, damme, sir, what a. few Royal Navy officers do for their own don’t mean this pop-in-jay benefits from someone’s ‘interest’ in the same manner,” Ayscough went on. “Who and what the hell is he?”

“He, like your officers and senior hands, Captain Ayscough, is reputed to have been an officer in the French Royal service,” Twigg replied snappishly. “Well thought of at one time, I’m told by certain informants. Commanded a sloop of war, what they call a corvette.”

‘To be well thought of in their fleet, he’d have to be royal himself,” Choate pointed out, snuggling deeper into his coat. Despite a coal-fired heater in their captain’s quarters, it was a cool night, and a stiff wind on the Pearl River made it seem even chillier. “Some duke’s by-blow, at best.”

“Not titled,” Twigg supplied. “A commoner’s lad. From Brittany. Perhaps from St. Malo. I believe his father’s family is in the ... uhm ... fishing trade.”

“Wi’ the profit from his voyages sae far, sir, he could buy any bluidy title he desired once he’s hame,” McTaggart chuckled.

Twigg glared in McTaggart’s direction, shutting him up. Alan was glad he was seated on the stern transom settee, out of range of Twigg’s considerable amount of bile.

“Yet he rose in the French Navy,” Twigg went on.

“Only because he couldn’t get into their Army, most like,” Alan said in spite of himself. “Never made officer with hay still in one’s ears. That takes both a title, and lashings of livres.”

“Quite right, Mister Lewrie,” Twigg allowed, sounding almost pleasant for once. “So why did they not send one of their titled, and successful, frigate captains on this mission?”

“For pretty much the same reason they sent us, sir,” Brainard the sailing master griped. “We’re nobodies. Expendable and not much loss to the Fleet if we fail.”

“Thank you, Mister Brainard. I didn’t know you thought so well of us!” Ayscough laughed bitterly. “If you’re correct, though, one begins to wonder in what repute you were held to be part of our band, eh?”

“Ain’t we a merry crew, Alan?’ Burgess marveled with a cynical shake of his head.

“Burge, there’s so much brotherly love and cooperation in this cabin, I feel positively inspired!” Alan whispered back.

“Back to the subject at hand, please,” Twigg ordered. “And if you two could hold down the school-boy twitterings over there? Yes, Mister Brainard, the French sent this talented young peasant to do their dirty work for them. ‘Cause they can’t sully their limp little hands at it, for one. For a second, they’re not ruthless enough to deal with native pirates and prosper. And perhaps, because they knew if they held out enough promise of reward to this wretch Choundas, he’d leap at any opportunity for continued employment.”

For a summary, it still sounded hellish like the reasons they had been called to service themselves, to Alan’s lights.

“He’s an aspiring brute from Brittany. Clever enough in his own fashion, I’m sure. Perhaps, like I said, a St. Malo corsair.”

“So was this Sicard, sir,” Percival stuck in, breaking his usual silences. “Sicard has the large crew in La Malouine; this Choundas of yours has a small crew.”

“Damme, he’ll fry his brains if he keeps that up,” Alan muttered to Chiswick.

“Yes?” Twigg rapped out, impatient to go on, and a bit surprised to hear from Percival after all these months.

“Well, sir, seems to me Choundas has the ship made for privateering, Sicard has the perfect old tub to act as the cartel for all the loot,” Percival stammered out, turning red from being on the spot, from the effort of erudition and from the possible fear he was making a total ass of himself. ‘They could both act innocent ... or something.”

“The two of them working in collusion?” Alan blurted, unwilling to see Percival take a single trick. “Well, damme!”

“We have no proof of that, Mister Percival, though the connection is tempting,” Twigg allowed. “Sicard seems honest enough, and he’s never been in their Navy. Been out here for years. Dabbled at privateering in the last war against our trade, but then, what French sailor didn’t, at one time or another.”

“Cargoes, Zachariah,” Wythy rumbled. “Where’d Sicard get his bloody odd cargo, then? Furs from Nootka Sound’d tie one ship up fer a tradin’ season. Take two of ‘em t’do all we suspect. Mister Percival may have a point, at that. R’member, there’s no sign this Choundas put into Macao, nor traded opium fer silver with the mandarins. Come straight up-river, an’ what he’s landed so far’s general run-o’-the-mill Indian cargo.”

“What if it’s this Sicard who’s the leader, and Choundas and Poisson D’Or are merely his bully-bucks, sent out to enforce what he’s arranged?” Choate enthused. “Look, Captain Sicard has been in the Far East and the Great South Seas for years. You said so yourself, Mister Twigg. He’d be the one most like to have contacts in past with native pirates. This Choundas is a newcomer, with a new ship. What connections could he establish with ‘em on his own?”

“Gentlemen, this idle speculation . . .” Twigg gloomed, those lips growing hair-thin in dislike at the direction his conference was going.

“You suspected Sicard and La Malouine, for good reasons, sir, in the first place,” Alan pointed out, not without more than a slight amount of glee. “Maybe Choundas is just a messenger from France, a catch-fart from their Ministry of Marine. And a bloody pirate who needs his business stopped. But not the leader—merely a henchman.”

“That means we got two ships t’keep an eye on,” Wythy added relentlessly. ‘That’s all right, long’s we’re anchored here in Whampoa Reach. Damme, we’ll need a second ship t’ follow both of ‘em in the spring. If they stay that long.”

“And two captains to shadow, now,” Ayscough said, smiling thinly.

* * * *

“Ajit-ji,” Wythy instructed as they stood near a stack of cotton bales ashore in Canton. “Nandu-ji.”

“Jeehan, Weeth-sahib?” they chorused.

“Piccha karna Fransisi havildar-sahibi vahahn. Ajit-ji, neela koortie, milna? Nandu, vo admi lal gooluhband, milna? Piccha karna, jeehan? Hoshiyar! Khatrah! Badmashes!”

“Aiee, jeehan Weeth-sahib. Ek dum!”*

Nandu and Ajit agreed, and walked away into the mob of sailors and traders milling about as Hog Lane got into full motion for another night.

“That takes care of the bosuns or cox’ns,” Wythy sighed as the Indians put on a remarkable performance of two revelers wandering around in a daze, but following the two sailors from Poisson D’Or and La Malouine who had come ashore with Sicard and Choundas. They had come in separate sampans, but even so, their movements would be covered closely, and hopefully, surreptiously.

“We’ll take Sicard,” Twigg whispered, and he and Lieutenant Percival went in one direction, leaving Wythy and Lewrie to loiter by the cotton bales until Choundas dismissed his cox’n, the same sailor they’d seen giving Telesto the eye the week before in the boat with him. A handful of coins changed hands, then Choundas clapped the fellow on the shoulder and barked a short, humorous comment before the sailor departed on his own errand, or amusements.

“There he goes. Nice an’ slow, now, Mister Lewrie,” Wythy instructed. “No need t’ trod on his heels, nor breathe down his neck. Just keep the bugger in sight. Mister Cony, is it?”

“Follow the French mates there. Ajit, the one in the blue coat, see? Nandu, that man in the red scarf. Follow them, yes? Carefully! Dangerous! Thieves!”

“Yes, lord. At once!”

“Aye, sir, that’s me name, sir,” Cony whispered, a trifle nervous.

“Ye know what’s wanted?” Wythy inquired. “You go on ahead of him, stroll along at a fair clip like ye know where ye’re goin’, an’ if this Choundas bugger veers off from behind o’ ye, don’t worry ‘bout it, ‘cause we’re still followin’ him. If he gets outa sight, try an’ spot where he went t’ ground, an’ come back t’ join us. Right?”

“Right, sir,” Cony said with a deep sigh of commitment.

“Achcha, Cony-sahib!” Wythy praised. “Chabuk sawi! Ijazaht hai! Daw mut!”*

*”Good, Cony-lord! Clever fellow! You may go now! Don’t fear!”

“Jeehan, Mister Wythy, sir.” Cony essayed a brief grin before he took off on his dangerous chore.

“He’ll be safe enough, should he not, Mister Wythy?” Lewrie asked.

“Aye, he’s a clever’un. Picks things up quick as a wink, like he’s learned more Hindee’n most Englishmen out here ten years. It’s us that’s in more danger. Those Frogs know we’re officers off the ship that’s been payin’ close attention to their doin’s. And ye’ll mind how they’ve been givin’ us the eagle-eye the last few days.”

“Aye, sir,” Alan replied, feeling absolutely naked among the throngs of drunken, reeling sailors in Hog Lane. “God, I’d give my soul right now for the feel of a little rigging knife, though!”

“And it’s be yer soul, if the mandarins’ soldiers caught ye armed,” Wythy warned. “One of their eight bloody rules ye never violate, not if ye know what’s good fer ye. Applies t’ the Frogs same’s us, thank the good Lord.”

Choundas wandered Hog Lane for a while, strolling into Thirteen Factory Street at last, and wandering right past the factories to the bank of the foetid creek, and across the plank bridge to the front of the King Qua Hong. He looked to be in no hurry to get where he was going, but there wasn’t much down that way: Mou Qua’s Hong, a wide lane that did little business that late in the evening, and then one of the large customs houses, which would be shut.

“Clever bugger. Clever as paint,” Wythy commented, taking Lewrie by the arm and steering him back the other way. “He’ll turn about and come right down our throats, t’ see if anyone’s tailin’ him. Not the skills ye expect t’ see in a French naval officer, damme’f they ain’t!”

Choundas did reverse his course and struck out west once more, making a beeline for the bridge. Cony had already crossed over, and was across the street from him. There was nothing for it but for him to turn into Carpenter’s Square, and try to look as innocent as he could. Wythy and Alan turned their backs on him and suddenly got interested in an open-air grog shop that spilled out into Hog Lane, with all evidence of nothing more important in their lives than a mug of rum and hot water.

“Sorry, Mister Wythy, sir,” Cony apologized, once he had rejoined them. Alan offered him the rest of his grog. It was far below the standards of Navy Issue from the Victualling Board—the rawest stuff he’d tasted since leaving the West Indies. “God, that’s awful, sir!”

“You stay here, Cony. We’ll follow him now.”

“Headed for the French factory, Cony?” Alan asked.

“Nossir, ‘e’s on t’other side o’ the street. Just goin’ into Old Clothes Street now, sir,” Cony related.

“Dead end, else he’d get into the city proper, an’ I doubt he’s got that much clout with the mandarins.” Wythy grinned. “No, our lad’s off t’ put the leg over some Chinee lass. Better cut o’ bagnios lays in that direction. ‘Bout a dozen of ‘em. Co Hong quality stuff.”

“Aha,” Alan commented. Wythy had at last informed him where he could get some quim.

“He’ll be in there ‘bout an hour’r so,” Wythy said, pulling out his pocket watch. “If the brute has any taste, that is. If he’s the peasant Zachariah thinks him, I’d make it a quarter o’ that. Let’s be meanderin’ so we may keep a sharp eye peeled for when he comes out. Cony, ye want the rest o’ my rum, as well?”

“Well, h’it ain’t so bad, once ya gets some down, sir, thankee right kindly,” Cony agreed.

They strolled west, past the Chow Chow Hong, the East India Company Factory, the Swedish, to take guard across the street from the entrance to Old Clothes Street.

“Well, damme,” Percival said as he and Twigg heaved into sight.

“Sicard?” Wythy asked.

“In there,” Twigg whispered, pointing with his chin.

“Same fer Choundas,” Wythy snarled. “Now what’s so allfired secret they gotta do their talkin’ in a brothel? Ain’t their ships good ‘nough?”

“This may be some theatric, to keep us off-balance,” Twigg sighed with the exasperation of a longtime expert at the art of tailing a man. “Unless there’s someone they’re meeting in there, someone they wouldn’t want even the Chinese, or the Co Hong, to know about.”

“A Chinese pirate, maybe, sir?” Percival asked. “Or do these Malay or Mindanao raiders ever come up the Pearl to trade in Canton like anyone else?”

“How many brothels in there, Tom?” Twigg asked.

“Only four I know of that cater t’ Western custom. Rest is fer the Co Hong, ‘r the Chinee exclusively. There’s touts enough in the street if ye wish t’ ask about. If they went t’ one of the best ones, ye can wager the pimps’r still pickin’ their chins up off the street at the novelty of it,” Wythy imparted with a soft laugh.

“Well, I need some volunteers, then,” Twigg demanded. “To enter those brothels that accept Europeans.”

“I’ll go, sir,” Alan piped up. It had been a long time since Calcutta—and Padmini, Draupadi and Apsara!

“Speak fluent French, Mister Lewrie?” Twigg simpered. “Speak Chinese, come to think on it? Would you know what to look for?”

“Would you, sir?” Alan shot back without a pause.

“Most probably I would not, sir,” Twigg smiled. “But I would know most of the French Compagnie des Indies officials by sight, and more than a few of the notorious Chinese coastal pirates as well. Tom, we’re in your hands now.”

“Aye, Zachariah. Look, you an’ Percival try the last two on the left. Lewrie an’ I’ll look into the others. Hope the pimps speak pidgin at the best.”

The pimps did, though it didn’t do much good. Old Clothes Street was full of European barbarian foreign-devils that night, and to the Chinese, they all pretty much looked alike, so even the offer of some cash didn’t get them any useful information.

“Ever’body got a condom?” Wythy asked. “Just in case.”

Percival didn’t. He was relegated to street lookout on the other side of Thirteen Factory Street. Percival was very put-out.

“We can use yer services again, Cony,” Wythy said.

“Aye, sir, though ... uhm ... I h’ain’t got much money, sir.”

“I didn’t come prepared for sport, either, sir,” Alan said, “Not in the financial sense, anyway. Do you think the tariff would be dear?” he asked with an innocent expression.

“Well, damme!” Twigg griped, but dug out his purse and handed over enough golden guineas to pay for their socket-fees, an act which half killed his soul, and made Alan delight in the prospect of getting the leg over at Twigg’s expense.

They saw Cony into one of the brothels, assuring the warder at the door that Cony was a minor tai pan, no matter that he was dressed as a sailor.

“Ye want this’un, then?” Wythy asked. “An’ I’ll take the last but one on the right. Meet us at the Chun Qua Factory whether ye learn anythin’ or no. Don’t dawdle, Mister Lewrie. Half an hour, shall we say?” Wythy grinned.

“The things I do for King and Country, sir,” Alan smiled back.

“An’ not a jot on what I’ve done in the King’s name, boy.”

“Aye, sir.”

The expedition took a lot longer than Wythy’s stricture of half an hour. And, Lewrie suspected, if his own experience was anything to go by, none of the others would be getting back to the Chun Qua Factory before he did—might not even get back before dawn!

First, he had to pay the warder to get into the bloody place. It was nice to learn that the bobbing little weasel could speak pidgin, no matter what the mandarins’ laws had to say about limiting the number of Chinese exposed to foreign-devil barbarians, their languages and alien ideas. It did, however, cost him six pence, which was not so nice.

He was lit into a small alcove through a semi-circular archway by a giggling little maid-servant. There were several of the alcoves along the main hall, screened off by folding rice-paper screens painted with some truly awe-inspiring Oriental pornography. Try as he would, he could not overhear any French being spoken, nor did he see either Sicard or Choundas in any of the alcoves.

“Wythy must be right,” he muttered to himself. “The man’s not here, or he’s a damn quick worker. On, off and ‘Where’s my shoes.’ “

The maid-servant seated him on pillows before a very low black-lacquered table, and began lighting lamps. Another maid came trotting in with a serving tray, offering steaming-hot towels, steaming-hot tea (an excellent early-spring picking Yu Tsien, he noted) and plates of tiny dumplings called dim sum for an appetizer. The first little maid returned with a straw-wrapped bottle of mao tai brandy and delicate little paper-thin drinking cups.

An older Chinese lady entered, dressed in a black silk robe all figured in gold-and-silver thread birds. She looked hard as flint and twice as old.

“You wan’ guhl?” she began. “One guhl? Two guhl? Wan’ see? Mak choose?”

“Have you any French customers, Mother Abbess?” Alan asked.

“No got French guhl. China guhl, got.”

“No,” he reiterated, speaking slowly as possible. “Have any men who are French come here in the last quarter-hour?”

“Ho, you wan’ boy!” The madam comprehended. “Eeeh, got China boy. French boy, no got.”

“Good Christ, I didn’t go to Oxford!” Lewrie shot back. “You misunderstand me. Me want girl! No want boy. I look for friends here. Red-haired man. Man with beard? He come here?”

“Wan’ guhl wi’ beard?” she gasped. “Aw fo’n debbil ... loony!”

“Want girl,” Alan sighed, giving it up as a no-go. “You bring girl? Me make choose, right?”

“W’y you no say so? Wan’ guhl? Yes, I b’ling,” she huffed.

“I fear this is not going to improve my conversational skill,” Alan commented to the little fourteen-year-old maid as she poured him a revivifying cup of brandy. She covered her mouth and giggled.

The girls arrived, four of them at once, and they didn’t titter or giggle, thank the good Lord. Hair black as ink and elaborately coiffed, stuck through with long decorative pins—hair as lacquered and shiny as polished ebony wood. Faces painted bolder than any English whore’s, with pale powdered faces and bright rouge and lip-gloss, their eyes and lashes outlined and brushed so that they loomed enormous, upper lids brushed with powder so they seemed like almonds enameled in blue and black. They talked among themselves, waving the huge sleeves of their intricately designed and figured silk robes.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Lewrie breathed at the sight of them. Choosing could be a hard process, for they were as lovely a quartet as any he’d ever suspected existed. And this was one of the brothels that specialized in Europeans—surely these would be thought of as mundane, with the absolute very best saved for the Chinese as too-precious pearls to be cast before foreign-devil swine!

They enveloped him, one seated to each side, one seated by the doorway to play a stringed instrument for his enjoyment, while the fourth began to sing, lolloping out some horribly off-key (to his Occidental ear) nonsense in a quavery, breathy voice. The one to his right plied chopsticks to feed him bites of dim sum, while the one to his left kept the tea and brandy flowing. And after each song, they would trade places, to introduce him to all their accomplishments.

“Speak English?” he asked each of them as they settled in at his side. “Speak pidgin? French? Bloody Latin?”

Sadly, three of them could not, but Wei Yen could. She was youngest of the four. It was hard for him to judge just how old she really was, but he guessed around sixteen or seventeen. Her skin was clearer, her features more delicate than the others’, her mien not as artificially gay and “cherry-merry” as the other three, either.

There was more tea, more dim sum, some more appetizers fetched out, another bottle of mao tai. And then the madam was back, with her hand out for more silver, to pay for the treats supplied so far.

“You mak choose, now,” the woman said, making it sound like a demand more than a request. “You wan’ one guhl, two silla. Two guhl, fo’ silla. Wan’ keep aw fo’, ten silla.”

“One girl. Wei Yen,” Alan replied, forking over two shillings for the girl and another six pence for the entertainment. The others bowed their way out and tripped down the main hall, toward the front of the establishment, their services already in demand.

Wei Yen beamed at him with a maidenly little smile, then took him by the hand and led him in the other direction, towards the back.

“Give bath,” she promised.

A steaming wood tub sat sunk into the floor of each bath cubicle, some already full by the sounds coming from them. Lewrie took his time dawdling on his way to his, trying to peer into each one or linger long enough to listen to see if he could hear French being spoken. He shrugged, thinking Choundas either not there, or long gone by this time.

Wei Yen hung up his garments, wrinkling her pretty little nose each time and sing-songing something in Chinese, laughing softly as she did so. Lewrie preferred to think that they were jokes. When he was bare to the world, she indicated that he should get into the tub. He slid down into the extremely hot water, wincing on his way down, and found a bench to sit on by the side.

Wei Yen walked with mincing little steps to the other side of the tub and disrobed down to a very thin nankeen under-grown, which she slipped back off her shoulders as he watched, entranced.

She was a little bit of perfection. Middling shoulders, slim neck, creamy skin the color of pale ochre wheat. The silk robe she had worn had concealed the springy young bounty of her breasts that stood up firm and proud and straight-ahead. Feet together, shadowing a dark cleft he wanted to dive into. There was the slightest bit of stockiness around her rib cage, but the’ waist was wasp-thin as a doll’s, and her belly was so firm and flat, with a ridge of what he hoped would prove to be damned talented muscle down the center, leading to ...

“Shaved?” he asked the room as she came toward him. She slid down into the tub with him gracefully, and came to his side. If she had seemed maidenly shy and tender before, it had been a theatric, for she became an unleashed tiger. She sat straddling him on the bench seat, reaching down to seize his member, which sprang awake as the Brigade of Guards in a twinkling. They slopped around in the tub, splashing water everywhere. She almost let him enter her, then slid away from him until she had him roaring in frustration.

But no. He had to leave the tub, sit on another damned stool while she soaped him from head to toes and scrubbed him clean with a sponge, sliding away from his soapy embraces and laughing all the while. Back into the tub for a cleansing soak, and then she was toweling him dry, letting him towel her dry. Then they gathered up their clothing and went up a back stairway to a private chamber.

He came to his senses just long enough to remember his condom, and then they were delightfully engaged, at long last, both making noises more usually associated with Iroquois massacres. “Father’s wrong, ya know!” he said between gasps. “Bengali women have nothing on you, my dear!”

* * * *

He lay utterly spent at long last, used up far further than he could ever remember, while the girl stroked him and kissed him, working him over with a small towel, and loosing her long dark hair that spread like a cloak to cover them both. She’d come unpinned somewhere in the second bout whilst teaching him an entirely novel manner, wrists and one ankle behind his neck as he sat on the edge of the bed clasping her small bottom like holding two small melons.

Her teasing fingers, and the moist warmth of the towel, strayed to his member, and it flickered with renewed interest.

“You wan’ ‘gin, qua?’ she said with a gasp of wonder.

“Again? After that?” he chuckled. “Well, in a few, perhaps.”

“No wan’ ‘gin, soon you go, qua,” she said in a soothing whisper. “ ‘Nudda man, he wan’, I got go. You stay, ‘nudda one silla. You wan’ chai, mao tail Wan’ eat ‘gin? Allee same _at^:Ua.”

“I stay,” Alan replied. “Mao tai, you and me both, right?” - She gave him a kiss and slid out of bed to slip on her un-dergown, open the door and call for one of the maid-servants.

While they drank and recuperated, he quizzed her as much as he was able. He learned that she had once been one of those little maids, purchased from a peasant family far to the north when the crops failed. Girl children could always be sold to support poor families. It was a prime reason to keep them, instead of putting them to death at birth: as a hedge against an uncertain future.

They were just about to partake of another spell of amour when Alan got down to his real questions, and the reason he had chosen her instead of one of the others who had no pidgin or English.

“Does a red-headed man ever come here?”

“Red? Wha’ red?”

“Like this pillow tassel. Red,” Alan prodded. “Dull, like ginger.”

“Aw fo’n debbil red ha’,” she tittered.

“Pale skin, like yours. He has a thin beard.” Alan had to make a partial mask over his lower face with both hands. “Not long. Short, ginger-colored beard.”

“Him debbil!” the girl shuddered.

“He comes here?” And she nodded her assent. “Did he come here tonight?”

“Him mak nudda guhl ‘night,” Wei Yen said, looking thankful. “Debbil, him! Mak wan’ li’l guhl, no wan’ olio guhl, my. Las’ yea’, him wan’ my, no so olio. ‘Night, him wan’ new li’l guhl Yi.”

“So he did come here tonight!” Lewrie exulted. “And is he still here? Right now?”

“Him heah. Him ba’ man debbil! Hu’t, my! Hu’t Yi allee same!”

“What does he do?”

The girl could find no words, so she forced him onto his back and began to slap the air over his chest. “Dat!” She bit at his nipples. “Dat!” She pretended to slap and choke him. “Dat!” Teeth took hold of his shoulder and neck. “Dat!” she told him, biting lightly.

“Jesus Christ, what a monster,” Lewrie agreed as she sat back up.

“Whi’ lak dead, him!” Wei Yen shuddered once more. “Bear’ mak sclatch. No wan’ guhl, wan’ bebbee. No wan’ bebbee guhl him on top! Him wan’ ...” She slipped off to one side of the bed, knelt with her head on the pillow, arms held behind her back as though they would be tied if with Choundas, then slapped her rump.

“Wan’ go ba’ place, allee same guhl place.”

“The pervert!” Lewrie growled. “What an utterly rotten bastard!”

“ ‘Otten bassah’?” Wei Yen said, sitting up once again.

“Rotten,” Lewrie corrected.

“Lotten bassah,” the girl parroted, then said it to herself several times, trying “pervert” on for addition to her vocabulary as well.

“Well, you’re not with him now, you’re with me. And I’m not a rotten bastard, or a pervert,” Lewrie assured her, drawing her down to him. “Well, not much of one, anyway.”

Then there came a muffled scream from down the hallway, and a series of yelps. Wei Yen stiffened in his arms, burying her face in the pillows. “It him, red ha’ fo’n debbil!”

“He’s still here!” Lewrie said, starting off the bed, almost dragging the frightened Wei Yen with him. “Oh, what luck!”

More wails of terror and pain, hiccupy little strangling wails such as a very young girl, one even younger than Wei Yen, would make. The sound of cuffs or blows, perhaps, preceding each new outcry.

Lewrie went to the door and opened it to hear better, even as Wei Yen tried to drag him back. He saw another door open, saw Captain Jacques Sicard lumbering to the noise as the madam and one of her bully-bucks came up the stairs from the front of the bordello, their sing-song voices sounding anything but musical. Sicard was rapping on the door, whispering “Guillaume!”

Lewrie ducked back as Sicard began to remonstrate with the madam, opening a purse to pay her off for whatever damage or harm his man was causing. Another door opened, only a couple of rooms beyond his own, and a distinguished Chinese gentleman emerged, drawn to the commotion. He stopped in his tracks, though, and squinted his eyes, when he saw Lewrie, just shutting his door.

“You no go, him hu’t!” Wei Yen rasped, dragging him back into the room completely and slamming the door with her behind. “Ver’ ba’ man, him! Wei Yen mak you contentee, no silla, you stay ‘way!”

“What are they saying?” Alan asked, trying to shake the little baggage loose from her death-grip on his body and find his stockings.

“Him pay muchee silla, muchee tael cash fo’ Yi,” Wei Yen translated. “Olio woman Ma she say fo’n debbil go, him, no comee back. Is good!”

Doors opened. Voices rumbled in Chinese, pidgin and French as Lewrie began to dress, much against his better judgement. Wei Yen was trying her damnedest to coax him back into bed with her. But he’d had his fun, expensive as it had been, even if it had been Twigg’s money. He had to be ready to shadow Choundas once he left the brothel.

With his stockings and shoes on, his breeches pulled up and buckled, he heard footsteps coming his way. Ignoring the girl’s protestations, he stepped to the door and opened it just a crack, standing well back in the shadows so he could see what was happening.

The shoes sounded different. Two pair, perhaps, of hard-soled European shoes with heavy heels. And the swishing sound of a pair of slippers.

Alan saw the Chinese man, now dressed in an elegantly embroidered silk robe, with a round pillbox hat on his head adorned with one coral button on the top and a long peacock or pheasant feather. The man cut his eyes towards his companions.

And there were Sicard and Choundas, shoulder to shoulder behind the Chinese man. Sicard paced on past, but Choundas slowed down to a crawl as he passed the crack in the door. And he grinned! A brief, sardonic, mocking grin, before resuming his pace and joining his companions!

The cheeky bugger, Alan thought at first. His second thought was for a weapon. For that brief glance was as chilling as coming face to face with Old Scratch himself! There was no shame in the leering grin. No fear of discovery. Only scorn for whoever it was behind the door.

I’ll wager he grinned ‘cause he thinks there’s a poor whore in here he’s tortured before, Alan thought. Gloating at her. Or maybe he was daring whoever he took me for to come out and say or do something about it.

Or, he realized with another chill of dread, that Chinee bugger saw enough of me and recognized me. Christ! “Sorry love, duty calls. Damme her eyes. This is for you,” he said, handing over two of Twigg’s golden guineas. “I go follow bad man. And when we catch him ...”

He made a scritch sound and the motion of cutting a throat.

* * * *

Alan trotted out of the door for the end of Old Clothes Street where it opened out onto the wider main road. He looked about for a sign of Twigg or Wythy, for Will Cony, but his was the only Occidental face present. And, as he emerged, the number of Chinese in the dark street melted away into the doorways and the darkness between the few oil lamps.

He was almost out of the street when something made a quick swishing noise, and his skull exploded! There was a burst of light he could taste, something brassy-coppery, and then a pain that made him wish to scream like he never had before, except that it hurt so much to draw a deep breath that he couldn’t! Without knowing how he had done it, he was face-down in the dust of the street, eyes barely able to focus on a pair of bare and horny feet at the edge of his vision. They were coming towards him. A knee appeared, as if whoever it was was preparing to kneel.

Without thinking, he lashed out with his left arm and leg, and the agony that doubled and redoubled in his head was so exquisite he found breath this time, gasping for air to let out a scream of pain as he swept whoever it was off his feet.

The man went down, overturning some baskets, spilling garbage against the dingy walls. A stout stave clattered against the bricks. Howling with more pain, Alan clawed himself onto his assailant, but the man retrieved the stave and rolled over to strike him across the top of his shoulders. Alan yelled some more, though the blows didn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt as bad as his skull did in comparison!

There seemed to be other cries now, stirred up by his howl-ings, and the drumming of feet heading toward the street opening. His foe shrugged Alan off and got to his feet to flee, but Alan got both hands around one ankle and held on for dear life, getting dragged through dirt and garbage for his pains. He could smell blood. He could smell mildew, his face pressed against the back of the assailant’s ankle: the salt and mildew-moldy reek of a sailor’s clothing.

The man stumbled to one knee, kicked backward to free himself as Lewrie tried to scale him, nails rasping on rough duck cloth as he got a couple of fingers in the man’s waistband from the rear. More blows from the stave, one on the skull again, this one bringing back the explosion of light once more.

He couldn’t hold on, and dropped away. The next blow swished past his drooping pate to thock! on the wall with a horribly hard blow.

“Hold on there, ye bastard!” Alan heard a voice say, and then there was a flash of light that winked as Alan tried to look up, one small glimmer of flickering oil lamps on metal. Knife!

Ignoring his skull for his life, he scuttled back against the wall, turning over more tall wicker baskets as he tried to rise and crab his way up the rough bricks. A shadow bulked from the street entrance.

“He’s got a knife, Mister Wythy, look out!” Alan screamed.

Two bodies swayed against each other. Two quick blows. Two more winks of steel, and then the foe was gone, running east down Thirteen Factory Street for the creek and the plank bridge. There was a hue and cry, the babble of Chinese voices.

“My God,” Wythy sighed as he stumbled to the wall to lean on it, sinking to his knees. “My God!”

Alan lurched away from the wall to sink to his own knees by the older man as Wythy pressed both hands over his abdomen. “That bloody bastard!” He grimaced, his expression turning to a cock-eyed grin of sarcastic surprise. “Think the bastard’s killed me!”

“Hoy!” Alan called, his head splitting with every breath. “Hoy the watch! A man’s been stabbed here! Somebody help us!”

“Oh my God,” Wythy whispered as his blood flowed like a spilled bottle of claret and steamed in the cool night air.

Alan staggered to the street entrance. Yes, sailors from a dozen nations were coming on the run. He could see Twigg and Percival, with Cony bringing up the rear.

“That way! A sailor with a knife! Somebody stop the bastard!” Alan yelled, and then his own vision began to turn into a dim tunnel, pinpointing Twigg’s ugly phyz.

He sank to his knees again. “Oh, will no one catch the murdering shit?” he moaned.

“Oh ... my ... God,” Wythy wept in reply.