Pinned in my berth by the ship’s wild bucking, I hadn’t realized what was happening. But above the awful rending of the ship’s timbers, the whacks of the corporals’ sticks, their shouted commands, I’d been aware of a solid, desperate roar that was shattered by a series of small explosions, the distinctive smell of gunpowder, shrieks of terror and pain.
Later, I learned the devils had fired their muskets directly at the captives clawing the hatch gratings from below. Those shot had fallen onto the men beneath them. They in turn, had tumbled onto others. Then, as the fallen had piled up, the ship’s crazed pitching and lurching had shaken them loose, hurling bodies into the men choking the walkways, the corporals crushed among them, toppling all.
In the flailing muddle, the efforts to disentangle sticks and limbs, many had suffered severe grazes and bruising, a few broken bones. But those of us who’d remained in our berths bore similar injuries from the ship’s lunges and rolls. As for the men shot by the devils’ muskets, none died. Their wounds were mere blazes of purpled skin. For the devils had fired pellets of seasalt, and I expected they’d do likewise when fighting mutineers. Not out of mercy. No. But because we were the captain’s goods.
ACCORDING TO AH Jook, the captains of devil-ships protected the wheelhouses on their vessels with iron barricades, and the one we’d passed through when herded onto the stern deck for inspection was typical: About eight feet high and stretching from bulwark to bulwark, it had a single gate flanked by two openings for a pair of cannons that were positioned to rake the ship’s main deck. My eyes fixed on the devils and their weapons, I’d failed to see either the cannons or the barricade. Did the leaders of the mutiny know about them? Was overcoming cannons and a barricade in their plan?
Even with the cannons shooting pellets of seasalt, I doubted the barricade could be breached unless the devils were taken by surprise—and by a large force. Which meant it had to be stormed at the very start of the mutiny.
Red or some other devil surely counted the knives in the cookhouse before Shorty, Pockface, Ah Kow, and the two Buffalos returned to their berths for the night. The mutiny, then, would have to begin in the afternoon. The three cooks wouldn’t be foolish enough to fight alone or to rely on immediate help from below. Could there be mutineers among the men going above for opium?
Those without cash were allowed to charge the cost of the opium against future earnings, and I’d heard more than a few who went for “medicinal doses” make fun of the doctor for failing to recognize that they didn’t have the habit. But I’d thought I knew why they were going. While in line for our meals or washing our bowls and chopsticks, I’d watched many a man collect his tiny jar of opium, stretch on a mat, take out a speck at the end of a wire, carefully warm it over the flame of a lamp, press it into the porcelain bowl of his pipe, then dip in for more. Back and forth he’d go, heating the opium, working it into the proper sticky consistency. Finally, the man would suck on the pipe’s stem, and although family teaching had instilled in me that pipedreams were both fleeting and false, I’d wish my own head was filling with hot, sweet smoke, bringing dreams of happiness with Bo See.
Returning home through a mutiny might be a pipedream, too. With no other chance for escape though, I’d accepted Ah Choy’s invitation to join. Now I prayed to Gwan Gung—the heavily bearded, red-faced God of War who champions right as much as might—for another Sahm Yuen Lei.
DURING THE FIRST war over opium, a devil-general had landed five thousand English and Indian troops north of Canton. Our soldiers, taken by surprise, had been overwhelmed, and the devil-soldiers had easily captured the five forts that protected the city’s north gate.
Heaping injury upon injury, this devil-general ordered cannons set up where they disturbed the fung sui, the natural order of wind and water, for the villages in the area. He sent devil-soldiers into the countryside to forage for food.
Some of these devil-soldiers not only stole livestock but willfully trampled crops, looted villas, plundered temples, opened graves, and molested defenseless women. Cowed by the devils’ guns, none of the abused fought back— until a night patrol forced its way into a home just outside Sahm Yuen Lei and the screams from the household’s women so outraged the men in the village that they overcame their fears and rushed to the rescue.
These men drove out the devil-soldiers with their bare fists! Then, emboldened by their success, the men of Sahm Yuen Lei beat on drums and gongs, rallying others to push the devil-general and his troops back into the sea.
Almost eight thousand men from over one hundred villages responded. The villagers had nothing for weapons except their mattocks and hoes. But their rage made them brave, and they advanced against the heavily armed devils, attacking with such vigor that they broke the enemy’s ranks. Soon after, Gwan Gung splintered the sky with loud volleys of thunder and lightning, letting loose rain that disabled the devils’ guns, and the villagers won a great victory.
AS WORD OF my husband’s capture and his brother’s pursuit spread through Strongworm, people shrilled alarm and wild speculation. The very air began to crackle and throb. Worry felled Ma, then Ba, leaving Eldest Sister and Brother-in-law in charge.
The family, unlike the village, had always heeded my call for absolute calm when around worms. Only Moongirl, however, had ever managed to shed her feelings in the wormhouse the way I did. On those occasions when strong emotions had rocked other family members, they’d restricted themselves to outside work.
Now Fourth Sister-in-law, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, prepared medicines and meals. Together with Eldest Sister-in-law, she nursed Ma and Ba, directed Eldest Niece in the care of the children too young to work.
Snatching time from reeling cocoons, Second and Third Sisters-in-law helped their husbands hang heavy winter quilts over the ceiling beam in the middle of the family’s main room in order to contain cooking odors that wafted in from the kitchen, smoke and fragrance from the altar’s candles and incense. They also cleared the furniture and clutter from the side that was smoke- and odor-free, scrubbed its walls and floor clean of soot and grit, installed the chopping blocks and knives from the wormhouse.
Then, while Second and Third Sisters-in-law returned to reeling, my brothers-in-law and their children picked mulberry. Every day they brought in fresh leaves from the fields and prepared them for our worms. They packed the chopped leaves in baskets, then carried them the twenty, twenty-five steps to the door of our wormhouse, a small brick outbuilding on the other side of our courtyard wall.
Each of the freestanding shelves within held a half-dozen trays of worms, and I alone had to feed all. Nevertheless, I took the time to carefully distribute the leaves in an even layer above their pointed mouths so no worm would injure another by crawling over it in order to eat. As they grew, I increased the size of the trays to prevent overcrowding, thus reducing the danger of any being squashed or suffocated. When they soiled their trays’ paper linings, I gave them fresh.
Of course, one pair of hands, even working ceaselessly, could not possibly feed thousands of hungry worms fast enough, and although Eldest Sister-in-law had excused me from household tasks, I’d have to leave from time to time to use the privy, wash, change my clothes, down a mouthful of rice, or sink onto a bedmat between the shelves to snatch a moment of sleep.
Despite my best efforts to keep up, some worms became impatient while waiting for fresh mulberry. Straining for the tough, inedible scraps that collected at the bottom of trays, they crushed those in their path.
The count of dead was low, however, and the worms’ lusty appetites proved their good health, the family’s effectiveness in shielding them from our troubles.
EVERY MORNING, DIRECTLY after four bells, a pair of corporals escorted the cooks and their helpers to the cookhouse. Wedged between my berthmates, I couldn’t see them. But the noise in the between-decks at that hour was sufficiently muted that I could hear the corporals rapping their sticks against one berth, then another.
“Aaa
rgh,” someone croaked. “Can’t you poke them awake?”
“Poke yourself,” Pockface snapped. “Better yet, go cook so I can have a lie in.”
“Ai,” Little Buffalo whimpered.
“Get your ass down here,” Corporal Woo ordered.
“I’m sick,” Little Buffalo whined.
Big Buffalo groaned. “Me, too.”
Shorty snorted. “Lazy more like.”
“Greedy,” Ah Kow said above the sound of retching. “I warned those two the meat was rotten.”
“What meat?” Corporal Woo demanded.
“Scraps from the devils’ garbage.”
“That’s enough talk.” Corporal Woo rapped his stick impatiently. “Let’s go.”
There were curses, calls for them to hurry up about it, protests from Pockface, Ah Kow, and Shorty that they couldn’t cook for eight hundred without help.
“Three-three-three,” Corporal Lee shouted. “To the cookhouse!”
“Not yet,” Ah Choy groused. “I’m a steward.”
“You’re what I say you are,” Corporal Lee came back. “You, too, three-three-four.”
“Pick someone else,” Warts told him.
Stick smacked flesh.
“Alright, alright,” Warts cried. “I’m coming.”
Other mornings I’d distracted myself from my misery by tracking their departure: the muffled footfalls; the faint clicks of latches for the removal of the two night lanterns from their cages at either end of the between-decks; the rasp and clang as the devils unlocked the gate in the hatch and threw it open. Today, sailors were already clattering about the deck, scrubbing the planks. Men directly below them were thumping the ceiling with their fists, cursing the water splashing through the cracks. I was silently thanking the God of Luck for the mutiny’s auspicious start.
SHUFFLING FROM THE hatch to the cookhouse, I wondered whether Warts and Corporal Lee were part of the mutiny. I fretted that although the two Buffalos were gone, one of the corporals hemming us in might notice the knives in the cookhouse were disappearing into baskets of food and alert the devils. Or, since everybody in the between-decks itched from bugs embedded in the seams of clothes and nests of hair, a cook might mistake an ordinary scratch for the prearranged signal. Or, by ill fortune, Red or the captain or some other devil might walk past and catch a cook slipping a knife into a basket.
Questioned under the lash, anyone might endanger the mutiny. Reasoning I could tell the devils nothing if I knew nothing, I’d deliberately not asked Ah Choy any questions. Now I agonized over what I was supposed to do with the knife, how I could hide it before I set the basket in front of the men waiting for their morning rice.
Too late, I wished I’d taken Ah Jook or Ah Ming into my confidence and sought their help. I considered slipping the knife under Scholar Mok. One of the nine for whom I was steward, Scholar Mok had been kidnapped on his way to a literary exam, and he’d been deliberately courting death by refusing to eat or drink. In the past two days, he’d not left his berth. . . .
Knuckles in the small of my back pushed me forward, and a stick that would otherwise have landed on my shoulder whistled past.
“Keep the line moving!” the stick-wielding corporal barked.
Madly scratching my left ear, I stepped in front of Shorty, who handed me a pot of hot tea, a basket loaded with two stacks of bowls, a bundle of chopsticks, and a mound of rice flecked with bits of saltfish I might have missed but for their spicy fragrance. If the knife was under the rice, digging it out would be a mess. I eyed the bowls, which were laid on their sides.
“Looking for gold?” a corporal mocked.
“No, more of the devils’ meat,” Pockface joked.
The cooks, corporals, and stewards laughed. Horrified I was calling attention to myself, I slunk back to the hatch, matching my stride to the roll of the ship so as to maintain my balance.
Carefully I eased myself and the basket through the narrow opening in the grating, made my descent from sunlight into darkness, squeezed into the blur of darker shadows jamming the walkway.
Feet stomped mine. As I attempted to pull free without upsetting the basket, hot tea streamed from the pot I was clutching by the handle.
“Wai!”
“Look out!”
Hands grabbed the basket. I clung on. The bowls and chopsticks rattled.
The hands on the basket tugged harder. “Let me help you.”
“It’s not necessary,” I insisted although the pot was swinging wildly, spilling more tea.
“Clumsy clot! You need all the help you can get.”
“Really, I can manage.”
“Alright, suit yourself.”
So abruptly were the basket and my feet released that I tottered. Steadying myself, the basket felt lighter. I did, too.
AS USUAL I set the pot, then the basket, in my berth before climbing up, and all nine of us downed our rice swiftly and in silence. How could it be otherwise when we had our legs folded against our chests, our chins bumping our knees, and our shoulders, arms, elbows, and chopsticks chafing and jabbing one another? Moreover, our throats were always parched, so we were eager to empty our bowls for tea. Now, lifting just the pot, I understood in a flash that my load had lightened on account of the tea that had spilled. Had there even been a knife in the basket?
My hands shaking, I began to pour. With Scholar Mok’s allotment added to ours, I’d previously been able to fill our bowls. Trying to stretch what was in the pot, I stopped far short of the rims, and I left my own bowl empty, stammering that I’d go without since I was at fault for spilling the tea on my way down.
“Swigging from the spout, you mean.”
“Yeah, you’ve had your fill.”
“And at our expense.”
“You sneaky bastard.”
“No wonder you pounced on the job of steward.”
At the accusations, my throat closed, I could not utter a word of protest. Nor did anyone else defend me.
Suddenly, Ah Ming seized my bowl. The snarling over the missing tea stopped. Greedy Cat, a chubby youth kidnapped after he’d slipped away from friends to buy a snack, buried his face in his bowl.
His thin lips twisted in a grimace, Ah Ming poured a dollop of tea from his bowl into mine. Big Belly and Toothless cackled their scorn.
Ah Jook, shamefaced, mumbled, “I can’t.”
My voice rough from emotion and thirst, I urged, “Drink. Everybody. Drink.”
Big Belly raised his bowl to his lips. “Damned right!”
Moaning, “My throat’s sore as my back or I’d give you some,” Ah Bun did likewise.
“Sure you would,” Toothless sneered between gulps.
With the men around me sipping and slurping, my thirst worsened. But I offered to return the tea in my bowl to Ah Ming.
“Save your spit.”
Hurt, I shrank into myself, not even daring to say thanks.
AH MING’S GIFT, gone in a single swallow, acted like a tease, and as I went above to wash up, I prayed the rain that had brought the victory at Sahm Yuen Lei would begin now.
It didn’t seem much to ask since big winds at home brought heavy rains, and the wind whistling through the devil-ship’s rigging was powerful, filling sails larger than our family’s biggest fields. Above the deck where I squatted in front of the washbucket, however, the sky remained a torrid blaze of gold unmarked by clouds.
Desperate for relief, I plunged my hands past the bowls and chopsticks in the bucket of saltwater, splashing my face, my neck, my chest. The droplets cooled, but only for a moment. Then they vanished, leaving me hotter than ever. So I splashed myself again.
“This way, brother.” The steward at the bucket nearest mine scooped water into two bowls, tipped them over his head.
The corporals encircling us growled.
“Stop that foolishness.”
“Break a bowl and I’ll break your head.”
From inside the cookhouse came angry shouts.
“Qu
it bossing me!”
“I am your boss.”
“Dead boss!”
“You threatening me?”
At the first shout, Corporal Lee had darted from the wash area. Since the cookhouse door was around the corner, we couldn’t see him, but his calls for help were distinct, and several corporals left at a run.
Corporal Woo drummed his stick against the planks at his feet, bellowing, “Dah! Dah! Dah! Strike! Strike! Strike!”
My heart jumped. Was this the signal to mutiny? Or was Corporal Woo announcing trouble, calling for reinforcements from below?
Quickly, I twisted my head and flicked my eyes in search of clues. Corporals and stewards were gaping at Woo in stunned silence. The devil-sentries at the hatch had quit their posts and were aiming their muskets at us.
Yelling, “Duck!” I grasped the sides of my washbucket and hefted it up for a shield, soaking my pants, sending bowls and chopsticks crashing onto the deck.
Other stewards turning over their buckets added to the wetness and litter. Corporals dashing for cover cursed as they skidded on slick planks and scattered chopsticks, stumbled over unbroken bowls, fell, cut themselves on sharp-edged shards.
A musket fired. Another. At the blasts, the rat-a-tat on our makeshift shields, men screamed, and the acrid whiffs of gunpowder were soon smothered in the rank odor of bowels loosed by fear.
I NOW KNOW the cookhouse brawl was a trick to draw the corporals and devil-sentries from their posts. Moreover, while the cooks and their helpers cudgeled corporals they deemed untrustworthy, gagged and bound them, corporals committed to the mutiny converted their sticks into more lethal weapons by fitting the ends with well-honed blades, then ran forward to ferret out and subdue devils.
At the same time, mutineers below—alerted by Corporal Woo’s signal that the hatchway was unguarded— led captives up the ladder and herded them towards the ship’s stern, shouting, “Kill the devils! Take over the ship!” in multiple dialects. Some of the leaders snatched grappling hooks or chains, even the large, club-like pegs used to hold coiled rope along the ship’s rail. Others attacked the devil-sentries, seized their muskets and fired them at the devils loading the cannons.
God of Luck Page 7
