Shadow of the Osprey by Peter Watt

Author:Peter Watt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780552147958
Publisher: Transworld Publishers
Published: 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Opponents of the Chinese miners and merchants complained that Cooktown was rapidly becoming the Canton of the South. Out of Hong Kong on Robert Town’s ships they came in their thousands for Sin Chin San – the New Mountain of Gold – as the Chinese called Queensland. And they came with little else to lose other than their lives.

Hard-working people who kept to themselves, the Chinese went where the Europeans left ground considered to be worthless. And from this supposedly worthless ground they extracted gold – reason enough to cause the animosity of the miners who felt cheated by their success.

The presence of the Chinese manifested itself most noticeably in Cooktown’s China Town, a rambling quarter made up of Chinese eating houses from which wafted the aromas of exotic oriental spices and strange foods. From the opium dens and brothels came the pungent scent of opium mixed with the incense of joss houses. Doll-like girls with tiny, painfully bound feet waved delicate fans against the tropical heat as they rested from the places that employed their bodies to provide services to both Chinese and European miners. The Chinese quarter was an Asian world unto itself ruled by the secretive tongs.

Michael Duffy’s guide was a surprising young man. At first Michael had taken him for just another miner – a big man with broad shoulders, golden skin and coal-black eyes. But it was obvious that his guide was a Eurasian when he said something in Chinese to one of the tiny young women outside a brothel. She laughed shyly from behind her fan and John grinned.

Michael followed John Wong through the quarter to a ramshackle building of corrugated iron. Inside, Michael was aware of the close-packed smell of sweating bodies, opium and dried fish. It was a heady mix. Alien, but not unpleasant.

A huddle of Chinese men squatted around a square sheet of tin with oriental calligraphy along the sides. They wore loincloths and little else in the stifling heat.

‘Fan tan,’ Michael commented. He had seen the game played by Chinese on the ship steaming north from Brisbane.

‘You play fan tan Mister O’Flynn?’ John asked.

‘No,’ he replied, as the players chatted and sweated around the board. ‘Never learned how to play but it looks interesting.’

‘It’s a fairly simple game,’ John explained. ‘The figures on the sides of the board are numbers one to four. The player selects the side he wants to put his money on and the banker, as you would call him, has a few dozen brass coins which he uses as counters. You see now, the banker tosses the coins in a pile on the floor.’

Michael watched with a gambler’s professional interest. The banker placed a cup over some of the Chinese coins he had scattered and brushed the rest away with a deft movement. He then lifted the cup and quickly sorted the coins into sets of four. When he had completed the counting, one of the Chinese players at the metal board grinned triumphantly, and was patted on the back by the men behind him.

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