"I'd love to peek. May I?"

"Of course. Malcolm?"

"No thanks--you two go ahead," Malcolm said. He had been over engine rooms of their own steamships since a boy and engines had never interested him, only their efficiency and cost and amount of coal they consumed.

Before leaving the bridge Marlowe checked the lie of his ship and the wind. They were three quarters of a mile offshore, well away from the fleet and the merchantmen. "Number One, you have the conn. When we're abeam the flagship, stop steaming and all sails ho, course due east."

"Aye aye sir."

Malcolm watched Marlowe lead Angelique to the midships gangway with a pang of envy at his light step, at the same time amused by the infectious charm he poured all over her. He relaxed in his chair. The sea and the sky and the wind and the space had taken his gloom away. It was good to be afloat, wonderful to be part of such an efficient, well-kept and proud fighting ship, grand to be comfortable and safe in a sea chair and his mind had given him different plans to cope with tomorrow and the days after.

Joss. I'm not going to worry about anything, he promised himself. Remember your oath and the new era!

After Gornt arrived in Yokohama like a gift from heaven, Malcolm had thanked God for the reprieve and had sworn, if Gornt's information was what he claimed, that forevermore he would just do the best he could, and be satisfied with that. With enough information to smash the Brocks, he was certain beyond all doubt his mother would rush to his side.

Angelique was all that mattered and being tai-pan, but not only in name.

That same night he had been impelled to look in the mirror. It had to be done. Some power forced him to regard himself for the first real time in years, to really study himself deeply, not only his face.

At length, he thought: This is what you are, you're still badly hurt inside, you can't straighten up too well, your legs don't work as they should, but you can stand and you can walk and you will improve. The rest of your body works, and your mind. Accept it.

Remember what Mother and Father kept telling you since you were a child: "Accept your joss, that's what Dirk would always say. Dirk had half a foot shot off and that didn't stop him, Dirk was shot and cut a dozen times, almost killed at Trafalgar as a powder monkey, almost destroyed by Tyler Brock half a dozen times, accept your joss. Be Chinese, was Dirk's advice. Do your best and devil take the hindmost!"

His heart began pounding. Dirk Dirk Dirk. God damn Dirk Struan! You've loathed having him thrown in your face, you've always been petrified you'd never measure up to his impossible image. Admit it!

The reflection did not answer. But he did.

"I've his blood, I've his Noble House to run, I'm tai-pan, I do my best, but I'll never measure up to him, I admit it, God curse him, that's the truth! That's my joss."

Good, his reflection seemed to say. But why hate him? He doesn't hate you. Why hate him like you've hated him all your life--you've hated him all your life. Haven't you?

"That's true, I hate him and always have!"

Saying it aloud had shocked him. But it was true--and all the love and respect a sham.

Yes, he had hated him, but suddenly, there in front of the mirror, he no longer did. Why?

I don't know. Maybe it's because of Edward Gornt, maybe he's the good spirit who's unlocked me from my past as he wants me to unlock him from his. Hasn't Morgan poisoned his life and his mother's and father's? Not that Dirk poisoned mine, but his spectre came between Mother and Father and poisoned them--wasn't that their joss, that Father died hating him, and as much as Mother openly worships him... in her heart she hates him for not marrying her.

There on the bridge of the frigate, he remembered the cold sweat soaking him, then later drinking some whisky, but not the other stuff, rupturing that obsession there and then, knowing another truth: he craved it, and was addicted.

Too many truths faced. Not easy to face yourself, the most difficult--and dangerous--task a man can do, must do once in his life, to be at peace. I've done it, like it or not.

"Number One," the young signalman said to Lieutenant Lloyd, his telescope trained on his distant counterpart.

"Message from the flagship, sir."

Two decks below, the engine room was a dungeon of heat and throbbing noise and dust and blackness and stench that was pierced with squares of blazing coals as half-naked stokers opened furnace covers under the great boilers to shovel in more coal or rake the embers to receive more coal, and then more.

Angelique and Marlowe were standing on one of the overhead iron grills, the air swirling up filled with the smell of coke and fire and burning oil and sweat and steam. Bodies below sheened with sweat, big-bellied men with muscles bunched, their razor-sharp shovels screeching along the iron deck into the coal bunkers to come back full, a deft throw and the coal scattered in a level bed to fire at once and be replenished.

Aft, the pounding engine shone with care and oil, more men using long-nosed cans to squirt oil into joints, others cleaning with swatches of cotton waste, others tending dials and pumps and valves as the engine drove the propeller shaft against the crush of the sea. Jets of steam from valves, more oil and cleaning and constant attention to pistons and levers and cogs and more coal and Angelique found it vastly exciting--those below oblivious of them.

Proudly Marlowe pointed and explained over the roar and she answered with a nod and a smile from time to time, holding his arm lightly to steady herself, not hearing a thing or caring to listen, possessed by the engine room that seemed to her a masculine Valhalla where machines were married to men, now part of them, primitive yet futuristic, slaves tending their masters and not the other way around.

Unnoticed the signalman came up behind them and saluted. Not being heard he came forward, saluted again and broke her spell. He handed Marlowe the written message. Marlowe read it quickly, then nodded and shouted at the man, "Acknowledge!" He leaned over to Angelique, "Sorry we have to go now."

At that moment signal bells from the bridge sounded below. The engineer officer acknowledged the order. Men rushed to close cocks and open others, leaning on levers and checking dials. As steam power came off the huge driving shaft and the engine began to slow, the noise lessened and the stokers leaned gratefully on their shovels, their chests gulping air heavy with coal dust and wrung out the towels they wore about their necks. One man turned on the bunker and cursed it, still drowned by the roar, and opened his trousers and pissed on the coals in a jet that ended in steam to the laughter of other men. Marlowe hastily took her arm and guided her away, up the gangway. One stoker noticed her, then another and before she had gone, they were all staring at her departing figure, silently. When she had gone out of sight, one of them made obscene movements to more laughter mixed with a sudden, sad silence.

On deck the instant lack of noise and breathing in the sea air, made her feel quite giddy for a moment and she held on to Marlowe. "Are you all right?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Thank you, John, that was, well, extraordinary."

"Oh?" Marlowe said, absently, his attention on sailors in the rigging and on deck hoisting and adjusting sails. "I suppose it is, the first time. At sea, in a storm it gets rough down there. Stokers and engineers are a race apart."

He took her over to Malcolm. "Sorry, have to leave you a moment."

He went below to his cabin that was aft. The Marine sentry saluted as he passed. The ship's safe was under his bunk. He unlocked it nervously. The message from the Admiral had read, "Activate sealed orders, 1/A16/12." In the safe were the ship's log, codes, money for pay, pay book, punishment book, manuals, manifests, receipts, Naval Regs and several sealed envelopes given him by Flag this morning.