The Silver Lotus Read online

  Lady’s Yee’s particular powers of observation and evaluation were buttressed in part by an insatiable appetite for newspapers and periodicals. These she devoured in Chinese, English, and French. Whenever they entered a port, she’d pay the deck boy, Billy Starkey, to get her all the current newspapers. They were usually the first items brought aboard ship after the customs inspector departed.

  She also had a habit of asking pointed questions of officers from other ships. She wanted to know where they’d been, what cargos they carried and why, who was in power on such-and-such an island, and what kinds of duties were demanded for certain goods. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Lady Yee was extremely attractive, cultured, and very personable in three languages, these hard-boiled old salts would have closed up tighter than clams at low tide, but for Lady Yee they would talk themselves blue in the face, and then thank her for the privilege of her company. Fortunately for the captain, she usually focused her keen efforts on more pragmatic targets like grain factors, ship chandlers, rubber brokers, teamster foremen, and the occasional customs officer.

  Captain Hammond, after much deliberation and some discussion with his officers, came to the conclusion that Lady Yee’s assessments of their trading prospects in the near future were correct. He knew from experience that what she had said about the ship’s condition was essentially correct as well. Even the crew was a little jaded about the Asia trade and longed for something closer to home, and with less time at sea. The captain also agreed with Lady Yee that there was at least one rich voyage left in The Silver Lotus, and it would be a shame to leave those rich waters empty-handed. If the profits held as projected, there would be plenty of money left over to refit the ship for the lumber trade.

  Since this would be their last voyage in Asian waters, the captain said that those crewmen who wished to purchase cargo and trade in their own right could petition him to advance their wages in cash to make any legal purchases they wished. To lighten their burden, the captain promised to insure their investments with his own cargo manifest. He told them that if they chose their goods carefully, they could easily double or triple their investments. Of course, having few skills in such matters, those men who chose to dabble pooled their funds and went to Lady Yee and asked her to make their purchases for them. They gave her the freedom to choose whatever she thought would be most profitable at the end of their journey.

  Captain Hammond felt somewhat slighted that they hadn’t requested those services of him, but he had to admit their choice hosted less of a gamble in the long haul. Lady Yee possessed impeccable taste, which he admittedly did not, and all were aware that she would also guard her crew’s investment like a mother bear, and it was that notable instinct that guided the men’s ultimate choice. Lady Yee told her little pack of salt-caked investors that she would share the risk by only purchasing goods for them that she was loading on her own behalf. If she found fifty bolts of fine silk for herself, she would contract for a further five bolts on their behalf, and so on. This seemed to please them greatly. She suddenly became their lifeline to an easier future, perhaps a bid for a modest farm, a grocery, or a tavern, and of course, the chance to enjoy families, either existing or planned.

  After a trading voyage of seventeen weeks, The Silver Lotus made for Canton before setting a course for Hawaii and the western ports of America. Captain Hammond wanted to top off his cargo with quality porcelain, fine bone china, and the kind of rich Chinese furnishings so popular in an American culture that simultaneously disavowed the validity of the Chinese that served in their homes, tilled their fields, and did their dirty laundry. Even for someone raised, as he most certainly was, in the racially conservative Macy tradition, the captain found the counterpoint between the mindlessly paranoid prejudices of the laboring classes and the sophisticated aesthetics of the wealthy way beyond sane comprehension or comment. After years of taking heed of his wife’s Buddhist sentiments, it now seemed that both parties were profoundly, if not mortally, confused, and therefore eons short of enlightenment. According to Lady Yee, the only tactic left that morally applied was the application of patience, compassion, and forgiveness, because no power on earth could possibly correct these lingering weaknesses without centuries of enlightened adaptation.

  Captain Hammond might never have considered the harsher realities quite in that context if he hadn’t been married to the “iron butterfly” of perceived reality. As far as Lady Yee was concerned, there were no accidents. Every certainty, be it light or dark, came with promising alternatives and likely opportunities. Only cultural value judgments stood in the way of true harmony, so it was important to take these aberrations into consideration and proceed with caution. Captain Hammond was amused to recall that, according to a prudent Chinese tradition, a man who falls into a fast-flowing river is wise to swim with the current, and Captain Hammond found the same canon applied to his life with Lady Yee.

  6

  CAPTAIN HAMMOND kept his ship in Canton for three weeks, partially for the refurbishment and replacement of sails—an expensive exercise everywhere but in Canton, where being Master Yee’s son-in-law substantially reduced the cost—but additionally so that Lady Yee could spend time visiting with her family. She also wanted to make specific purchases of matched pearls. Using the good offices and reputation of her father’s company, she was confident she’d get the very best pearls for the most equitable prices, and of course she did. A portion of her purchase was made on behalf of the informal consortium made up of the crew, and they were notably impressed.

  However, dangerous and violent times had once again come to the gates of Canton, and as soon as he had loaded his heaviest cargo at quayside, the captain hired a steam tug to move his ship to anchor in the offing just beyond the harbor. There he joined a score of other ships that had chosen discretion over bravado. The streets and harbor were relatively safe during the day, if you overlooked normal street crimes, but at night the hatchet men belonging to competitive triads roamed the shadows robbing and killing at will, and generally taking revenge for one thing or another. Captain Hammond told his crew that after sunset a Yankee sailor caught in the streets or alleys around the docks of Canton had the same odds of survival as a fat lobster in his mother’s kitchen. Nonetheless, he did allow small parties of four men at a time to go ashore between the hours of 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM, but only with the understanding that they stay together for protection and never allow themselves to be lured to any establishment housed in an obscure alleyway. Captain Hammond knew his crew to be men of sense and prudence, so he was not surprised to find that very few chose to accept the offer of shore leave. Most contented themselves with purchasing what they wanted from the flocks of bumboats that visited the anchorages daily.

  The captain had little fear for his wife’s safety, as Master Yee lived in what might be styled an urban compound of buildings and warehouses that were well protected by armed guards. Nonetheless, Captain Hammond felt obliged to stay with his ship and share his crew’s days of personal chores and ship’s maintenance. Some afternoons, Chinese magicians and acrobats would approach in the bumboats and offer to come aboard and entertain the sailors for an hour or two. The captain thought this a fine idea, and paid the modest costs of these entertainments from the ship’s purse. It was cheaper than bailing his men out of dangerous encounters with local triad bullyboys. On two occasions he commissioned a bumboat to bring him cooks and fresh provisions to feast his whole crew, and then brought aboard a troop of Chinese jugglers to entertain them while they ate under a tented pavilion hoisted over the deck for shade.

  The crews on other anchored ships nearby got wind of these entertainments aboard The Silver Lotus and pestered their own officers to do the same. A few captains realized the rationale behind Hammond’s thinking and, to keep their bored crews from mixing in mischief, copied the idea with equal success.

  But on the afternoon of the second feast a man arrived by boat with a written message from Master Yee countersigned by Lady Yee. It said
that the political situation ashore had deteriorated markedly in the last twenty-four hours, and it was advised that he prepare his ship for sea at once before the authorities impounded it for ransom. It was a quick way of raising cash from hapless trading captains, and a tactic that had spread to various tin-pot island kingdoms of late. The note added that Lady Yee and her maid and cook would rejoin the ship with the last of the cargo at dawn. She pointedly suggested that they be under way on the outgoing tide at 6:08 AM without delay.

  Captain Hammond debated with himself as to whether or not to immediately inform the other captains anchored in the offing about this threat. He didn’t want to surrender his own surprise departure before Lady Yee came aboard, and he feared the sight of so many ships getting under way would panic the authorities ashore into doing something rash. The ships most in jeopardy were the steamers. It would take a long while to bring their boilers up to pressure, the smoke giving ample warning and leaving plenty of time to be boarded by armed men of dubious authority. The big schooners were in a minority, but they could haul in their cables and be under full sail in twenty minutes or less. The captain compromised and took the lesser of two evils. He composed short notes to his fellow captains anchored nearby. These notes warned of imminent political danger ashore, including assaults upon or detention of all foreigners found in the streets, foreign sailors being a choice target for abuse. He stated that confiscation of ship’s papers and cargos could be expected to follow, possibly leading to the impounding of the ships themselves. He suggested a strategic withdrawal until the chaos quieted, or at the very least to set preparations in gear for a timely departure should the authorities decide upon confiscation or worse.

  Lady Yee and her servants came aboard later that afternoon. She brought with her six wax-sealed chests of goods purchased through her father. They were immediately stored away in the captain’s section of the hold. Lady Yee also brought the news that matters were getting worse in Canton. It appeared that certain highly placed officials had been caught in the act of committing fraud and conspiracy on a large scale. But rather than surrender to the courts and forfeit their powers, they had gone to the triads and hired heavily armed hatchet men to take over the city government. It had happened before. To get cash to pay their gangs, they would certainly extort funds from every possible corner, especially the harbor with its wealth of warehouses and goods. Lady Yee was assured that her father and family were safe and well guarded for the near future; however, she did suggest that their ship not wait for the morning tide, but raise all sail and depart immediately. Captain Hammond was more than happy to agree, but fulfilled his promise to himself by paying one of the bumboats to distribute his notes to the captains of the nearby ships. After that, he set a course east-southeast, sure that the bad news would inevitably spread with plague-like momentum. After that it was every ship for itself.

  The captain’s notes must have had some impact, for by the time The Silver Lotus had reached the horizon, the smoke of a half-dozen steamers could be seen curling into the sunset clouds as they fired up their boilers, and at least four sets of sails could be seen following The Silver Lotus in trail not ten miles off the stern. The Silver Lotus sailed on toward the east to complete her last transpacific voyage.

  IT WAS BILLY STARKEY, the sailing master’s deck boy, who at 5:08 the next morning informed a sleeping Captain Hammond that the barometer needle had just dropped like a headsman’s axe. He was told to report that the weather to the broad south-southeast was looking none too amenable, and also that to starboard cumulus clouds were stacking at an alarming rate, and below that a wall of black weather banded the southern horizon from east to west.

  There was no indecision for Captain Hammond. He thanked Billy and instantly gave orders to change course to north by northeast and fly all possible sail. He ordered all watches on deck and called for close attention to secure the storm sails and batten the hatches down with an extra ply of waxed canvas. Half the men he sent into the cargo holds to secure any loose cases or barrels with rope netting. He had the cooks prepare rations for three days of cold fare. After that he had the galley fires extinguished and the galley gear secured against the storm.

  With the wind now freshening on his starboard stern quarter, Captain Hammond hoped that he could outrace the storm just long enough to fully prepare his ship for the trials to come. He knew he would eventually have to turn and face the approaching monster, and stripped down to little more than storm jibs and small triangular stay-sails lofted on the other masts to stabilize the ship and hopefully keep her pointed into the wind and under moderate control.

  There was one other detail in the captain’s favor: Portland-built four- and five-mast schooners were famously well founded, almost overbraced, and very sturdy in every respect. According to legend, the greater the cargo load, the more stable the hulls became in serious blows. The captain prayed that this robust reputation would hold true for the next few days.

  Lady Yee, in the meantime, was hard at work with her maid Li-Lee and Billy Starkey stowing everything moveable in the captain’s furnishing locker just below the main cabin. Then she rigged the canvas straps for the bunks. These held the occupant in place at angles that would normally toss the sleeper across the cabin and cause serious injury. Lastly, she made sure she had food and fresh water in the cabin, and that all the medical supplies were easily at hand. When all was prepared, she called her husband to his supper, then sat to one side making detailed entries in the ship’s log as he dictated them over his hasty meal.

  Captain Hammond prided himself, perhaps sometimes erroneously, in the belief that he knew and understood his wife rather well, but that was to be expected after everything they had been through together. But Captain Hammond couldn’t shake the sensation that the Lady Yee who came aboard ship off Canton was not the same person he had left at Master Yee’s house two weeks before. There was some new, haunting aspect about the woman’s very presence that was real but beyond definition. He had no reference point from which to form a question, yet his wife had become something altogether brand new without changing one noticeable detail of her demeanor or personality. He wanted to question her, but he didn’t know what to ask, or how to ask it. She now exuded unquestionable confidence in everything she set her mind to. She seemed to glide on a plane of self-assured precognition. She knew beyond doubt that all would be well, and others magically became inoculated with that same conviction when in her presence. For all that Captain Hammond presently influenced, when it came to the morale of the crew, he might just as well have turned the command of the ship over to Lady Yee and have done with it. The fact that this observation amused him was one of the reasons Lady Yee cherished her big Yankee, and ultimately why the crew believed in his command as well. In all things, the rigid rules of the sea aside, they sailed under the flag of a strong and fortunate captain, who in all points and principles was a man just like themselves in many respects, but as captain and owner, functioning without excuses or alibis where his wife was concerned. Captain Hammond always managed the good grace to acknowledge superior thinking. The fact that a majority of the more creative solutions came from Lady Yee might have wounded the pride of a lesser man, but Captain Hammond seemed to rejoice in talking about his wife’s brilliance and discerning perceptions. Sometimes he would privately wonder just why such a brilliant and beautiful woman would have anything to do with a tar-barrel Nantucket Yankee like himself. But so as not to jinx his good fortune, he made a point of never asking his wife just why she loved him. He was content with her assurance that this was so.

  With but a few precious hours left before the inevitable clash of elements, Lady Yee insisted that her husband lie down for a short rest. She reminded him that he would get little enough in the days to come. Once tucked down, the captain was soon asleep, then Lady Yee went up on deck to judge matters for herself. With a sturdy wind driving taut sails on all four masts, the ship was running clean and fast through long regular swells. When she looked directly
overhead, the night sky was luminous with stars, but when she turned to look aft, Lady Yee was surprised to see a great boiling wall of blackness that reached from the horizon to the heavens, and where they met there were no stars. She went to the pilothouse and found the sailing master poised over his charts and instruments. Every so often he would tap the barometer glass, mutter to himself, and shake his head. He turned to Lady Yee and spoke as though she had been present for a while. He said he was grateful the men had done such a superior job of sealing all the hatches with heavy waxed canvas, for he feared that with the holds fully loaded, The Silver Lotus was going to be spending long hours plowing her head beneath some very steep seas.

  It was now 10:28 PM, and the sailing master told Lady Yee that he expected severe storm conditions by midnight. At eleven-thirty or thereabouts, he intended to turn the ship into the wind, put two sea anchors off the bow, lower all main sails, loft the storm sails, seal all the cabin hatches, and get down on his knees and pray.

  Lady Yee asked after the men, and was told that most would stay strapped in their bunks unless called on deck by some emergency. She was advised to follow their lead. A tight ship’s berth was the safest refuge for the foreseeable future, though she would derive little comfort from it. Having been told that the captain was resting, the sailing master politely requested Lady Yee to wake her husband before the time committed to turn the ship into the wind. She agreed and went back to the cabin. She was pleased to find her husband still sound asleep. She sat down next to him and quietly watched the meter of his breathing. After a few moments she reached out and gently touched his hand. Though most certainly asleep, he sighed as though relieved of some private burden and a gentle smile came to his lips. Lady Yee looked lovingly at her husband and thought of the trials he had yet to face.