Treasure of Khan (Dirk Pitt 19)
Temur tightened his grip on the Japanese sword and gave his men a knowing look of caution. But he relaxed when the old man stood and held up a fat thirty-pound yellowfin tuna. The other natives reached into the canoe and retrieved other fish and shellfish carried in reed baskets, which they placed at the feet of Temur's men. The famished soldiers anxiously waited for approval from the Mongol leader, then voraciously attacked the food, smiling thanks to the native hosts. The old man strode up to Temur and offered him a drink of water from a pigskin bag.
Having gained mutual trust, the natives pointed into the jungle and motioned for the shipwrecked men to follow. Hesitantly leaving their ship, Temur and his men followed the natives through the jungle, hiking for a mile or two before entering a small clearing. Several dozen small thatch-covered huts surrounded a fenced corral where small children were playing with a herd of pigs. On the opposite side of the clearing, an even larger hut with a high roof served as the home of the village chief, who Temur was surprised to learn was none other than the old white-haired man.
The residents of the village gawked at the strangers as a feast was hastily prepared and the Asian warriors were welcomed into the community with great honor. The ship, clothes, and weapons of the strangers were evidence of great knowledge, and the men were prized surreptitiously as new allies against potential enemy combatants. The Chinese and Korean warriors were simply glad to be alive and welcomed the generous offers of food, housing, and female companionship that the friendly villagers extended. Only Temur accepted the hospitality with reservation. As he chewed on a slab of grilled abalone with the village chief, his men around him enjoying themselves for the first time in weeks, he silently wondered if he would ever see Mongolia again.
• • • •
Over the next few weeks, the men of the Mongol invasion force took up residence in the village, gradually assimilating into the community. Initially, Temur refused to settle in the camp, sleeping in the rotting ship each night. Only when the storm-ravaged hull timbers finally gave way and the battered remains of the ship slid to the bottom of the cove did he reluctantly move to the village. Thoughts of his wife and four children played in his mind, but, with the ship ruined, Temur began to give up hope of returning home. His crew had gladly accepted their new lives on the tropical outpost, viewing their station as far preferable to the bleak life in China as soldiers of the Mongol emperor. It was an attitude Temur could never accept. The scrappy Mongol commander was a loyal servant to the khan and knew it was his duty to return to service at the first opportunity. But with his ship in pieces at the bottom of the cove, there was no viable means of returning home. With a bitter reluctance, Temur gradually resigned himself to a castaway's life on the large island.
• • • •
The years trickled by and gradually softened the resolve of the old warrior. Over time, Temur and his men had learned the lyrical native tongue of the island community, and the Mongol commander enjoyed swapping adventure tales with the white-haired chief. Mahu, as he was called, bantered on about how his ancestors had sailed an epic voyage across the great sea just a few generations before in mammoth sailing ships. The island had called to them, he said, with a rumble and a billow of smoke from the mountaintop, a sign of welcome from the gods to come and prosper. The gods had smiled on them ever since, providing a land of temperate weather and abundant food and water. Temur chuckled at the description, wondering how the primitive natives who barely traversed to neighboring islands in small canoes could find their way to crossing the ocean itself.
"I would like to see one of these majestic sail
ing ships," he chided the old man.
"I will take you to one," Mahu replied indignantly. "You will see for yourself."
The amused Temur saw that the old chief was serious and took him up on the offer. After a two-day trek across the island, he was beginning to regret his curiosity when the weathered jungle path they followed suddenly opened onto a small sandy beach. Temur stopped when his feet touched the sand, and the old man silently pointed toward the far end of the beach.
Temur didn't recognize it at first. Gazing across the beach, he saw only a pair of large tree trunks lying perpendicular to the shore. The rest of the beach appeared barren. As his eyes fell back to the fallen trees, he suddenly realized that they were more than just dead wood; they were the support frames for a massive raft that lay half buried in the sand.
The Mongol warrior ran toward the object, not believing his eyes. With each step, he became more mesmerized. Though obviously sitting on the beach for years, perhaps even decades, the ancient sailing craft was still intact. Temur could see it was a double-hulled design, with a single flat deck supported by the two large logs. The vessel stretched over sixty feet but carried only a large single mast, which had rotted away. Though the plank deck had disintegrated, Temur could see that the massive support timbers looked as sturdy as when they were felled. There was no doubt in Temur's mind that the boat had been an oceangoing vessel. Mahu's fanciful tale was true after all. Temur excitedly gazed at the remains of the vessel, eyeing a means to escape the island.
"You shall return me to my home and emperor," he muttered wistfully to the wooden mass.
With a native work crew under the direction of the Korean ship's carpenter put to the task, Temur set about refitting the old sailing vessel. Deck planking was cut and fit from nearby hardwood trees. Coconut husk fibers were braided into sennit cord and tied to the hull timbers and supports. A large reed sail was woven and fitted to the replacement mast, cut from a young tree near the beach. In just a few short weeks, the nearly forgotten ocean voyager was reclaimed from the sands and made ready to ply the waves again.
To sail the craft, Temur could have ordered his old crew aboard, but he knew that most were afraid to risk their lives again in a daring sea voyage. Many of the men now had wives and children on the island. When he asked for volunteers, just three men stepped forward, along with old Mahu. Temur could ask for no more. It would be barely enough to sail the old craft, but the Mongol commander accepted without question the decision of those who elected to stay.
Provisions were stocked, and then the men waited until Mahu declared that the time was right.
"The goddess Hina will offer us safe passage to the west now," he finally told Temur a week later, when the winds shifted direction. "Let us be away."
"I shall report to the emperor of his new colony in this distant land," he shouted to the men assembled on the beach as the twin canoe hull broke through the surf and an offshore breeze launched them briskly out to sea. Loaded with plenty of water, dried fish, and fruit from the local landscape, the ship set sail with enough stores for the crew to survive for weeks at sea.
As the lush verdant island disappeared in the waves behind them, the men aboard the catamaran felt a moment of insecurity and foolishness. Their deadly struggles on the sea more than a decade earlier came flooding back and they all wondered whether the forces of nature would allow them to survive again.
Yet Temur was confident. His trust lay in the old man, Mahu. Though the native chief had little sailing experience, he had read the stars with ease and tracked the sun's movements by day while studying the clouds and sea swells. It was Mahu who knew that the winds to the south of the island turned west in the fall months, which would fill their sails with a steady breeze in the direction home. It was Mahu who also knew how to catch tuna with a line and bone hook using flying fish for bait, which would supplement their diet during the long voyage.
After landfall disappeared from sight, the sailing came surprisingly easy for the inexperienced crew. Fair skies and calm seas greeted the men each day for a fortnight as they sailed with the wind. Only an occasional squall tested the boat's sturdiness, and it also gave the crew a chance to collect fresh rainwater. All the while, Mahu calmly issued the sailing orders while constantly tracking the sun and stars. Studying the clouds on the horizon several days later, he noticed an unusual clustering to the southwest.
"Land to the south, two days' sailing," he proclaimed.
Relief and excitement flowed through the crew at the prospect of reaching land again. But where were they, and what lands were they approaching?
The next morning, a dot appeared on the horizon, which grew larger with each passing hour. It was not land, however, but another sailing vessel crossing their path. As the ship drew near, Temur could see it sported a low stern and captured the wind with triangular white sails. She was not a Chinese vessel, he knew, but looked to be an Arab merchant ship. The trader drew alongside the island catamaran and dropped its sails as a thin dark-skinned man in a brightly colored robe shouted a greeting from the rail. Temur studied the man for a moment, then, reading no threat, climbed aboard the small sailing ship.
The trading vessel was from Zanzibar, its captain a jovial Muslim merchantman with considerable experience trading goods with the royal court of the Great Khan. The ship was bound for Shanghai with a cargo of ivory, gold, and spices, to be traded for fine Chinese porcelain and silk. Temur's tiny crew was welcomed aboard and sadly watched as their sturdy double-hulled canoe was cut loose, left to drift the Pacific alone.
The Muslim captain shrewdly guessed that saving the life of a Mongol commander would result in a more favored trading status and he wasn't disappointed. Landing at the port city of Shanghai, the vessel ignited an immediate uproar. News of the soldiers' appearance thirteen years after the aborted invasion of Japan spread across the city like wildfire. Representatives from the government met Temur and his men and whisked them up to the Imperial City at Ta-tu for a briefing with the emperor. Along the way, Temur quizzed his escorts about news of war and politics during his absence.
Much of the news was dispiriting. The invasion of Japan had been an unmitigated disaster, he learned, the typhoon having wiped out over two thousand ships and nearly one hundred thousand men. Temur was saddened to learn that his commander and many of his comrades had not returned with the remnants of the surviving fleet. Equally disturbing was the revelation that the islands of Japan still lay unconquered. Though Kublai Khan wished to attempt a third invasion, his advisers had wisely quelled the notion.
In a little over a decade, the dominance of the entire empire had been shattered. After defeat in Japan, an expedition to suppress unrest in Vietnam had also met with failure, while the expense of expanding the Grand Canal to Chung-tu had nearly caused the economy to collapse. Questions about the emperor's health created apprehension about his successor. A simmering resentment already resided in the people over the fact that a Mongol ruled the Yuan Empire. There seemed to be little dispute. Since defeating the Song Dynasty in 1279 and uniting China under a single rule, Kublai Khan's empire was now withering in a slow decline.
Arriving in the capital city of Ta-tu, Temur and his men were led to the Imperial City and escorted into the private chambers of the emperor. Though Temur had seen Kublai Khan many times in earlier years, he was shocked at the sight of the man before him now. Stretched out on a padded chaise lounge and clad in yards of silk robing was a fat haggard man who stared through sullen black eyes. Despondent over the recent death of his favorite wife and the loss of his second son, Kublai had turned to food and drink for solace, consuming both in excess. Though he'd reached the startling age of eighty, the dietary excesses were now wreaking havoc on the revered leader's health. Temur noted that the overweight Khan rested a gout-inflamed foot on a pillow, while jugs of fermented mare's milk stood at arm's length.