Chapter 15

The first stage of our voyage was a leisurely trip south toward Hong Kong. Currently, there was not much danger from pirates near Shanghai because the pirates had done something to deeply piss off the British Navy. I do not know how many British Navy ships were patrolling this sailing route, but we saw at least one every day for almost the whole first week. The pirates had decided to lie low for awhile, so there was plenty of time to exercise the defenders.

We spent a lot of time shooting at the floating targets and got so that one was rarely missed. I was impressed at Liz’s accuracy when shooting at the targets and would not be surprised if she turned out to be a major asset if and when we were attacked.

It was the seventh day of our voyage that the British warships seemed to disappear. I had no idea where they went, but suddenly we were totally unprotected from pirates. By this time, we were close to Hong Kong and Macau, and Hong Kong was to be our first stop for the passengers to hit the land and for the ship to be restocked with consumables.

Liz had never visited Hong Kong, so she wanted to go ashore. What the hell, I decided that I could use a day of solid ground, so I joined her. Naturally, we left our weapons on board the ship, except that I was actually uncomfortable without my pistol, so that I wore. The weather was cool enough that I was comfortable with a light jacket, and that was enough to conceal my pistol.

Hoi left the ship with us, but he had someplace he wanted to visit that did not interest Liz—she was dead set on shopping. Naturally, I stayed with her. We got caught up in the crowds of people and let the general motion of the crowd determine which store we visited next. It turned out that even I enjoyed that, right up until the time that disaster struck.

Liz was carrying a small purse in her left hand that held her money and some of the knickknacks that women always have with them. She had a collapsed parasol in her right hand—ladies of quality always carried one of those to protect them from too much sun. I was carrying a couple of small packages for her. Suddenly, a hand came out of the crowd and snatched at Liz’s purse.

Somehow the purse was attached to her wrist, so the purse snatching was a total failure, but the jerk on the purse was hard enough to cause Liz to fall to the ground. She managed to wind up in something wet and very foul smelling—what it was we never figured out, but its smell was reminiscent of spoiled fish.

Anyway, her dress was soiled possibly beyond recovery and Liz was devastated. She felt so bad about the whole thing that she wanted to return to the ship right away. I managed to find a rickshaw and to make the operator understand with my Mandarin that we wanted to return to the ship, and I had given him the correct address.

Well, we climbed into the rickshaw and the journey started. The crowd was so thick that we did not make good time, and the rickshaw man decided to try a circuitous route to get us out of the crowd. Hell, the delays were costing him money because he was not able to pick up new fares as long as we were using the rickshaw.

We were traveling down a nearly empty street which was a welcome change from what we had been trapped in, and we were moving in the general direction of the ship, so I was not worried. However, we passed an alley which suddenly erupted with three men running toward us. Two were wielding clubs and one had a knife with a long blade.

One of the men with a club ran up to the man pulling our rickshaw and said something that was beyond my still limited vocabulary, but he stopped. The other man with a club ran up beside Liz, and the man with the knife ran to the rickshaw on my side. I reacted as I would have in Texas and pulled my LeMat. The man with the knife reacted by trying to stab me, but I shot him in the chest soon enough to prevent that.

I swung the pistol around to point it at the man beside Liz, but he had already turned to run away. The sound of the pistol firing was enough to show him the error of his ways. The other club wielder reacted the same way as his friend. The man pulling our rickshaw was quick witted enough to figure out that this was a good time to leave, so he pulled the rickshaw at a respectable speed back to a busier street.

By this time, we had moved beyond the worst of the crowd, and we soon got to our gangplank. I paid the rickshaw man and added a significant tip, so he smiled and ran off to find another rich customer. Luckily, I had pulled Liz’s purchases out of the rickshaw before it disappeared.

Oh, my God, if anything, the smell from whatever that was on Liz’s dress had gotten much worse, and everybody reacted as she walked past on her way to her compartment. I was right behind her and entered the door to her compartment with the intention of dropping her packages on her bed. However, just as I dropped the packages, Liz let out a very unladylike string of curses, so much so that I was startled and stopped moving.

“Oh, dammit, Prince, I cannot get this filthy dress off, and I am about to die from the smell. Please help to get it off of me.”

Okay, I knew that I was about to see Liz without her dress, but women wore so much under at dress while out in public that I knew that I was not going to see any extra skin. Therefore, I did not pause and began to help her by undoing some of her buttons. Between the two of us, we soon had her dress unbuttoned from her neck to her ankles.

Forgetting to send me out of the room before she did it, Liz shook her shoulders and the dress fell to the floor. As expected, Liz was still wearing so many clothes that she was as modestly covered as she had been when she was wearing her dress. She stepped out of her dress and bent over to pick it up off the floor. To my surprise, she stalked over to the porthole, opened it, and threw her dress into the water of the harbor. In the process, she had walked by the partially opened door and kicked it closed.

At this point, she sniffed and reacted as if she were some great storm goddess of antiquity about to hurl a thunderbolt. She threw her clinched fists into the air and let out a horrible shriek. “Oh, Prince, my clothes still stink of that vile potion I fell into back in the market. Please help me find where it is and help me get rid of it.”

At this point, it was obvious that she was not even thinking that she was disrobing in the presence of a man whom she barely knew. Well, it was also obvious that she was so distraught by the foul odor and the frustration of the whole situation that she had never thought of that. The poor woman just needed help.

I guess that I was not thinking clearly either, because I said nothing about the inappropriateness of the situation and moved in to help her. I found a spot on her petticoat where the liquid had soaked through her dress onto the undergarment. It was on her left flank, so she could not see it. “Here it is on your petticoat.”

The frustration had continued to mount, and she almost shouted at me, “Pull off the damned petticoat, then.”

Well, being an unwed male, I had no idea of the best way to do that, but I tried. I started to lift the hem of the petticoat with the idea of pulling it off over her head.

“Men, no, no, no! Pull it down; the elastic will stretch to allow it to slide over my hips.”

Well, I did as directed, and the next thing I knew, I was staring at a set of bloomers. Those I did know about from my various visits to bordellos. I knew that she could not be wearing anything under them. The problem was that some of the stain was showing on the white cloth of the bloomers.

“Is the stain gone?”

“No, I am afraid not, but I cannot pull your bloomers off. That would make you naked from the waist down.”