The China Flyer approached Macao through a channel less than a mile wide, guarded each side by a squat fort. The roadstead beyond was crowded with boxy fishing junks, European merchantmen tilting at anchor, sampans with central awnings. There were canoes and rafts among the sampans, paddled by men, women and children noisily hawking fruit, vegetables or poultry, shrilling their availability to do laundry, sew clothing or provide love.
Lothar Schiller stood on board the China Flyer, sipping a cup of bitter tea in the dank morning as he appraised the ramshackle wooden houses and rickety bamboo moorings dotting the swamps. The gilded crosses crowning the distant Catholic missions did nothing to alter his impression of Macao as one of the ugliest, most uninviting settlements he had ever seen.
A tapping against the deck attracted his attention. He turned but did not immediately recognise the man approaching him.
Attired in a raspberry-silk frock-coat and powdered wig, George Fanshaw wobbled towards Schiller in high-heeled court shoes, tapping an imperious ivory staff against the deck as he walked.
Mein Gott! Does this fool think he looks like a gentleman? Schiller fought to suppress a howl of laughter as Fanshaw advanced towards him in the foppish outfit.
Flicking a lace handkerchief, Fanshaw ordered, ‘Neither you, Mr Schiller, nor the crew shall go ashore in Macao.’
‘How long do we stay here?’ asked Schiller, and forced himself to add, ‘—Herr Fanshaw?’ He must try to remain respectful until Fanshaw had paid him his money.
‘I go now to seek the Hoppo’s permission to proceed up the Pearl River.’ Raising his hand, the wrist heavy with ruffled lace, Fanshaw pointed to a copper-roofed building across the harbour. ‘I’ll need a boat to row me to their offices, Mr Schiller.’
Schiller nodded, muttering, ‘Aye, sir,’ and turned to execute the order. He had little reason or desire to linger in conversation with Fanshaw.
‘Do not allow anybody aboard ship in my absence,’ Fanshaw called after him.
Schiller paused. ‘Not even Manchu officials?’
Fanshaw patted a large pocket on his frock-coat. ‘I am going to take care of the officials now.’
Schiller understood. ‘I hope you save something for me.’
‘You’ll get your share when we reach Whampoa, Mr Schiller.’
More loudly, he called, ‘Make certain no enemies come aboard ship, do you hear? You’re to consider everybody an enemy, understand?’
Schiller’s tea had turned cold by the time he returned to his position. Emptying the cup over the side, he saw the oarsmen bending their backs in unison as they rowed Fanshaw through the harbour congestion.
Watching the wherry move through the sampans, rafts and canoes, he wondered: Did Fanshaw have reason to worry about enemies attacking him? His biggest fear was still that the East India Company would send the Bombay Marine after him.
Schiller faced the grim truth of his situation: whether he liked Fanshaw or not, he would have to protect him against any and all rivals if he was ever going to get paid.
* * *
At the age of ten, Lothar Schiller had been hired out by his father as a cabin boy to the Prussian merchant ship, the Melanchthon. After sailing back and forth from the North Sea to the Baltic, he learned on his return to Hamburg that his father had died in his long absence, and that his mother had married a Hanoverian apothecary, leaving no word of where her son could find them.
Lothar Schiller had grown up under many flags. Hanoverian. Austrian. Prussian. He had lived, too, in many towns. Bremen. Cassel. Hamburg. Consequently, at the age of thirteen he felt no loyalty to any king or country, only a kinship to the race whose language he spoke—German.
Finding himself homeless, Schiller had lied about his age in order to fight as a mercenary foot soldier with the French Army commander, Maurice de Saxe, against the Duke of Cumberland’s Allied Army in Flanders. Knowing little about the War of the Austrian Succession, and not caring to know, he only worried about the money pouch he would receive as his soldier’s pay.
Attached to the Irish Brigade under de Saxe, Schiller met British soldiers of fortune who taught him his first words of English. He learned, too, that careers could be made in Europe’s professional armies.
Fired by the hope of joining such a force, he travelled to England, but there was no market for his services at that time. Instead, he signed on with a succession of merchant ships plying between England, Scotland, and Denmark. As much at home on the sea as he had been on land, he quickly graduated from deck hand to helmsman’s mate, making friends with men below decks as well as with young officers.
Then came a chance to sail to Madras aboard the HEIC Indiaman, Castle Bukeley; Schiller seized it, secretly hoping to find work in India as a mercenary soldier in the struggle between the French and the English. He disliked the orderliness of Company merchantmen and longed for the rough-and-tumble life of soldiers for hire.
Although the Seven Years War had not officially ended in Europe, fighting had ceased in India by the time Schiller arrived at Fort St George. Rather than return to England on the Indiaman’s home voyage, he signed on with Company ships trading between the East Indian islands.
Work proved to be scarce, an increasing number of Lascar sailors taking jobs usually reserved for European seamen. Schiller spent months unemployed, scouting for work in Madras’s Black Town.
In February of this year, he had heard a rumour of employment being offered by an Englishman organising a private venture to China. He had several meetings with Fanshaw, convincing him of his ability both to command a ship and to keep silent about the voyage. The promise of gold influenced his decision to work for the unlikeable man.
The harbour noises of Macao brought Schiller’s attention back to the present. Looking in the direction where Fanshaw’s boat had disappeared through the crowded sampans, he regretted having taken this job on the China Flyer. The advantage of being a mercenary soldier was that a man seldom met his employer; it was easy to fight for a king you neither loved nor hated. But Schiller knew that he had actually come to detest George Fanshaw.