Chapter 1482 - Spy

The temperature in the drying room was high, and sweat seeped again from Marquis Bazan's curly hair. Gazing at the rows of shells arrayed on the wooden racks, a thoughtful expression settled over his face, as if he were speaking to himself: "Count Tilly fired eighteen thousand cannonballs daily at Magdeburg, yet even so, it took him five months to make the city fall. All of Bavaria, together with Genoa and Venice, melted down every scrap of iron and lead; every foundry labored day and night to cast shot for his army."

"Had he possessed the cannons and shells you see before you, a mere twentieth of that ammunition expenditure would have sufficed to shatter the heretics' defenses. Perhaps one day would have been enough." Hale bowed humbly. Having finished playing the fanatical scientific genius, he reverted to the role of calm and devout priest. "Serving the Lord's cause is my highest glory."

"You are a bit impatient, Marcos," Hale scolded his henchman as soon as he had watched the galley bearing the Marquis's party unmoor and sail down the Pasig River toward Manila. Boarding the carriage, he lectured Marcos, who followed his every command. "Those wooden-headed fools who can't figure out how to work deserve to die. But you would leave my guests with the wrong impression. They came here to see a factory unlike anything they have ever seen—orderly and methodical. Not some plantation where an overseer beats slaves to death at whim. That is everywhere in the colony—nothing fresh, utterly worthless."

"I am truly sorry, Sir." Marcos stood at a loss until Hale dragged him onto the carriage. "Bad things like this keep happening in the factory. When you wanted to take the Spaniards to see the gunpowder mill, I was terrified. Fortunately, their brains were already overheated. They didn't go."

"What's wrong with the gunpowder mill? Another accident in the mercury fulminate room?"

"No—your students manage that section very well. It was the grinding workshop. A mixing drum for gunpowder caught fire. Fortunately, following your instructions, the humidifying pipe for mixing was connected to the fire hose, so the blaze was extinguished quickly, without an explosion. Four men were injured. One had his skull crushed by the fallen drum rack—the doctor believes he can be saved. The other three are badly burned. I'm afraid they—"

"Perhaps I can still make it in time to administer last rites." Hale's tone was as if saying, "Tomorrow is Friday; prepare fish soup for dinner."

"Any other bad news? Did anyone die elsewhere?"

"A manual punch press in the pyrotechnics workshop was damaged. The worker responsible has been dealt with according to your regulations. Mr. Gebser is throwing a temper tantrum, complaining that the workers assigned to him are lethally stupid—uncivilized savages, all of them. The pass rate for fuze random testing has improved slightly over last month: sixty percent fired effectively."

"Tell that unwashed German that paying him the highest wages in the factory isn't merely for peddling his craft. If he cannot teach the apprentices assigned to him properly, I will personally punish him. What do I need most right now? Talent that understands technology—more precious than any gold or gems. Marcos, I could absolutely never find a second talent like you."

Marcos flushed at the praise. "No, Sir—in fact, I didn't even graduate from middle school—"

"At least you attended middle school, Marcos. In the era we now inhabit, that is remarkable. I don't know why fate arranged for us to come here, but I know the education you received is enough to look down upon Spain's most erudite scholars of today. You can read, write, and calculate; you understand principles of cost and efficiency; you know statistical data and can follow the formulas and process flowcharts I write for you. What more can I expect? True, I have taken a few students who are quite clever, but I must teach them bit by bit, starting from decimal points and the lever principle. It is harder than building Rome. Marcos, you are my right and left arm. Without you, whom can I rely on? Your seventeenth-century compatriots have their minds clouded by religious superstition. They see a machine and treat it as a demon, knowing only to kneel and pray not to be devoured. And the Spaniards? Charlatans who do nothing but recite Scripture, take communion, and shriek about executing heretics—or else lazybones and fools interested only in grabbing money and siring mixed-blood bastards. Marcos, this era allows us to rewrite history and accomplish something great. But the start is difficult. You must help me."

Having spoken, Hale poked his head out to peer beyond the canopy, leaving the flattered Fernando Marcos sitting inside in a daze. The Tagalog driver could not understand English, but seeing the priest master thrust his head from the canopy, he was so startled that he whipped the horse fiercely several times. The carriage immediately careened, scattering a group of Chinese workers gathered to receive their meal.

Japanese mercenaries ate from the communal pots in their barracks. As for the thousands of workers and coolies, neither Hale nor the colonial government troubled to worry over their meals—for seventeenth-century social management, such a feat was beyond ability in any case. In the end, the factory's food service was contracted to the Huang brothers, Huang Jian and Huang Xiang—Chinese clerks and administrators from the Parian who volunteered for the business. Hale had originally hoped they would establish a canteen inside the factory. But the cooks dispatched by the Huang family were terrified upon hearing the clamor of the great machines and seeing barrels of gunpowder hauled in and out; they refused to remain in the factory under any circumstances. Daily meals could only be cooked in the Parian and delivered by rowboat. If bad weather prevented boats from navigating the Pasig River—with luck, dry rations would arrive by oxcart; with ill fortune, every worker in the factory went hungry. Marcos had argued with the Huang brothers multiple times about this, but he had never managed to persuade them to open a canteen on-site. No other Chinese contractors possessed the capital to advance a month's food expenses for thousands of factory workers while keeping cases of food poisoning like diarrhea to a minimum.

Ji Mide stood in the food distribution line, surrounded by workers shouting and cursing in a babel of languages driven by hunger. Weiss Lando had gone to some effort to insert him into the Huang family's meal delivery crew without attracting notice. His ladle hand did not pause for a moment, but his gaze roamed constantly around the factory. Just as he was sizing up the departing carriage, he suddenly heard an old man sent by the Huang family scolding: "Youngster, don't slack off!"

The old man was berating two half-grown boys who had come along to help deliver food. He pointed at several wooden buckets filled with rice and soup behind him, then pointed toward the casting and forging workshop spewing thick smoke in the distance. "Carry them over, quick!"

Ji Mide's heart stirred. His hair had grown long enough; his skin was tanned dark. Apart from being a bit sturdier, he could not be distinguished from any ordinary Chinese in the Parian. Seizing the moment, he shoved the ladle to a boy beside him: "Don't slack off, youngster." Squeezing out of the crowd, he picked up a carrying pole, shouldered the wooden buckets, and strode briskly toward the casting and forging workshop.

By the time the carriage carrying Hale arrived at the gunpowder mill, the three burned workers had long breathed their last. The corpses lay covered with straw mats, ready to be borne to the mass grave behind the factory for burial. Casualties had gone from several per day when the factory first opened to one every few days now; everyone was long accustomed to it.

Worker casualties concerned Hale far less than damage to equipment and buildings. To prevent an explosion from affecting other areas, the gunpowder mill stood at sufficient distance from the other workshops, built on the banks of the San Juan River more than a thousand meters upstream from the river mouth. Because factory buildings had been burned and blown up and then rebuilt multiple times, the outer walls and roofs were made of cheap woven bamboo strips—crude in appearance. The roofs were covered with layers of abaca cloth coated in wood tar and copal resin for waterproofing. The floors, however, were fastidiously paved with wooden planks, every crack carefully sealed with asphalt to prevent gunpowder grains from lodging in the crevices. This fastidious, neat floor was now marred by puddles of water and messy footprints. Workers were busy mopping up water stains and coiling the canvas fire hoses that lay strewn in disorder.

The completely burned mixing drum had been reduced to a pile of wreckage, now stacked neatly along the wall near the scene. Such was the rule in the Manila munitions factory: without Lord Paul's instructions, no one was permitted to dispose of debris. The formerly chaotic scene had been largely tidied up by workers who had recovered from the shock.

"Was No. 1 black powder being mixed in this drum?"

"Yes."

"The regulation requires adding water to the drum when mixing. Did they forget?"

"It is almost ridiculous to say. One worker shouted that he was thirsty and pulled the gutta-percha tube off the humidifier to drink. The others grew impatient waiting for him and rotated the drum directly. Before it had turned twice, fire broke out. The sulfur powder and charcoal in a bucket nearby also ignited and burned quickly. Fortunately, there was no explosion."

"And the bastard who drank the water? Dead or alive?"

"Alive. Suffered some superficial head wounds—bled a great deal."

"Wait until his wounds are mostly healed, then along with the three idiots confined today, forty lashes each. Execute the punishment in public before dinner. Let everyone watch."

After announcing the penalty for violators, Lord Paul began inspecting the workshop—now speaking in Spanish, then switching to stiff Hokkien, issuing instructions or reprimands to bowing foremen. The foremen in turn shouted at workers in various dialects. After a burst of noise, the floor and fire hoses were quickly cleaned up. Machines resumed clattering with the waterwheels, and order gradually returned to the workshop.

"Production of No. 1 powder is estimated to stop for seven or eight days; it depends on when the carpentry shop finishes the new drum."

Marcos nodded in agreement.

"Accelerate production of No. 2 and No. 3 black powder. This isn't entirely a bad thing—our sulfur supply is always insufficient. Saving a bit temporarily is worthwhile."

(End of Chapter)