The Road to Samarcand. Patrick O’Brian

trousers, and there was a tear from knee to ankle: the dog stood there, bristling with fury, but waiting for a word from Derrick to go in and kill the aggressor.

      ‘No, no, don’t be angry with him,’ said Sullivan. ‘That’s just what he should have done. Only I wish he hadn’t done it quite so quickly.’

      And Olaf said, ‘Ay reckon they was all wrong about this so-called pie-dog of yours, eh? Ay said at the time, that’s something like a dog, that is, Ay said. Ay ban’t so sure it ain’t some kind of a special breed, at that.’

      Only Li Han was still of the same opinion. ‘Animal is becoming a little fatter,’ he said. ‘Yes: soon adequately obese now. Very succulent stew, he will make, very nourishing; and dog-chops, almost the same as chow, for the feast of the Lotus Flowers, very savoury, very unctuous.’

      Chapter Two

      All the way along the coast they met with calms or contrary winds, and the Wanderer, instead of the two hundred and seventy miles which she had logged in the first day and night after leaving Kwei Hai, now crept along, making no more than ten sea miles for a long day’s arduous tacking. Sullivan was particularly worried about their meeting with Professor Ayrton. ‘When I wrote,’ he said, ‘I underlined the words “God willing and wind and tide permitting,” but I don’t know whether he will understand the kind of winds that we have been having – and even if he does understand, I am not sure whether he will be able to wait. At this rate we shan’t make Tchao-King before Christmas. Derrick, go on deck and try whistling for a spell, will you?’

      Derrick whistled. Olaf whistled. Li Han beat a gong and the Malays sang their wind-song: Chang howled: but still the sails flapped idly, and far away on the starboard quarter a small junk which had been in sight since dawn came nearer and nearer, propelled by the immense sweeps that her sweating crew pulled to the sound of conchs and drums. ‘Ay wish my old grandma was here,’ said Olaf, pausing for breath. ‘She’d blow us to Frisco if we was to ask her polite. If the Old Man was to go to her and tip his hat and say, “Good morning, marm,” or “Good afternoon,” as the case might be –’

      ‘You don’t suppose that’s a pirate, do you, Olaf?’ interrupted Derrick.

      Olaf stared at the junk. ‘Could be,’ he said, indifferently, shading his eyes. ‘They come like wasps after honey along this coast. But they won’t meddle with us, not unless they was three, four war-junks all together. They tried that once, only two of them, off Tai-nan.’ He laughed reminiscently. ‘They won’t meddle with the Wanderer no more. No sir. Besides,’ he added, ‘there’s that destroyer on the horizon.’

      ‘What destroyer?’

      ‘Ain’t you got no eyes?’ asked Olaf, impatiently, as he pointed to the north-west. Derrick made out a low smudge that might have been smoke.

      ‘How do you know it’s a destroyer?’ he asked.

      ‘How do I know that’s my hand in front of my face? Ay look at it, see? Ay got eyes, see? Of course she ban a destroyer, U.S.N., and she’s bound for Manila.’

      The day wore on, a hot and sticky day without a breath of wind: Derrick sat in the shade of the mainsail, trying to comb Chang’s coat into something like respectability. He was an ugly dog, it could not be denied; and if anything the combing made his appearance worse. He had enormous feet, and from his feet and his clumsiness Derrick judged that he was not nearly fully grown: Chang already weighed a good fifty pounds, and if he went on filling out he would soon be more like a lion than a dog. Derrick looked up from his hopeless task, and saw the destroyer bearing down on them. Olaf had been quite right: she was an American destroyer, belching smoke from her four funnels and cutting a great furrow through the oily sea with her high bows. The junk far behind had turned long ago, and was now creeping painfully over the horizon, still sweeping arduously.

      ‘What ship?’ hailed the destroyer. ‘Where bound?’

      ‘Schooner Wanderer,’ answered Sullivan, his great voice roaring over the water. ‘Thirty days out of Macao for Tchao-King.’

      ‘What ship?’

      ‘Schooner Wanderer, Terence Sullivan master,’ he answered louder still.

      The destroyer made a sharp turn to port and came alongside. ‘Captain Sullivan, I’ve got a message for you,’ hailed the officer on deck. ‘It reads, “Ayrton at Tchao-King to Sullivan, schooner Wanderer: am waiting at Tchao-King until 31st, then moving to Peking by way of Tsi-nan.” Have you got that?’

      ‘Yes, thank you very much.’

      ‘You missed the typhoon, then?’ asked the officer, looking curiously down at the gleaming, orderly decks and the spotless canvas.

      ‘We had a little blow,’ said Sullivan. ‘Do you want to pick up a pirate junk? There’s one bearing south by east, just about hull-down at this minute. A gentleman by the name of Wu Sankwei, by the cut of his jib.’

      There was the sound of a bell inside the destroyer, her screws whirled into violent life, and she shot off in a great curve, leaving the Wanderer rocking in her spreading wake.

      ‘Perambulating kitchen-stove,’ said Ross, who had just come up from the hold. ‘Why don’t they clean their flues, or at least lie to leeward of a real ship?’ He looked indignantly at the sails, grey from the destroyer’s smoke.

      ‘She brought us a message from Tchao-King,’ said Sullivan. ‘Professor Ayrton will be there until the end of the month.’

      ‘Well, perhaps there’s some good in the navy yet,’ said Ross, looking pleased. ‘Did you tell her about Wu Sankwei? He’s got a nerve, coming out after us with no more than a couple of brass nine-pounders: he must have lost what few wits he had.’

      The message was particularly welcome. Sullivan had been fretting for weeks about the appointment, but now he knew that even if they made no better pace than they had for the last few days, they would reach the port in time. In the evening he harked back to a subject that he had already discussed quite often. ‘Now listen, Derrick,’ he said. ‘We want you to make a good impression on Professor Ayrton. Get Li Han to cut your hair in the morning.’

      ‘Okay,’ said Derrick.

      ‘And don’t say okay.’

      ‘Gee, Uncle Terry …’

      ‘And don’t say gee,’ said Ross.

      ‘We don’t want him to get the idea that we have made a barbarian of you. You must brush your nails, and you must not eat with your clasp-knife. Have you got any gum?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Then toss it overboard. I know what they think of gum at Oxford. And try to look intelligent.’

      ‘Like this?’

      ‘No. Not like that. No, perhaps you had better forget that: we don’t want him to think you’re sickening for something.’

      Just before dawn all the whistling for a wind had its effect, and by the time that Derrick was sitting in the galley having his hair cut, the Wanderer was racing along under all canvas, leaning from the wind so that with every thrust from the following sea her lee rails vanished under the flying spray. The chair slid on the canted deck, and the hair-cutting had proved a tedious and difficult operation.

      ‘Hope results of Western-style hair-dressing satisfactory,’ said Li Han, anxiously. ‘Should not have made bald patch or cut ear, however. Please excuse.’

      ‘Oh, it’s okay,’ said Derrick, mopping his bloody ear with his handkerchief. ‘You’re a swell barber, Li Han.’

      ‘Don’t say okay,’ roared a distant voice.

      ‘Why not say okay?’ whispered Li Han.

      ‘Because of my