The Sand Pebbles (26 page)

Holman went to talk to Lynch in the CPO quarters. Franks was there, and he had a coffee royal with them. Holman asked permission to disable the engine and take the knock out of the L.P. He explained very carefully what he had discovered.

“It’s in line,” Lynch said. “I
seen
’em point the rods in Hankow.”

“Sure, each cylinder’s in line with its own crank,” Holman agreed. “What I mean is, the cranks ain’t in line with each other.”

“They got to be. That’s built in.”

“But they ain’t.” Holman explained again about the grounding. It wouldn’t happen to a steel ship, with some spring to the hull, but the
San Pablo
was wrought iron, he reminded Lynch. “If you want
to come down in the bilges with me, I can
show
you what I mean, better’n talking,” Holman said.

Lynch looked hostile. “I ain’t going in them bilges,” he said. “For Pete’s sake, Jake, what you talking about? That’s
hull
, boy, Title A! You can’t fool with stuff like that!” He waved his hand impatiently.

“You guys are over my head,” Franks said. He finished his coffee and went out.

“Even supposing you’re right, what could you do?” Lynch said. “You got a drydock in your pocket, or something?”

“I figure the H.P. soleplate and the thrust foundation are still in original line with each other,” Holman said. “I want to center a wire between ’em and then take out the L.P. chocks and file ’em to bring the L.P. soleplate back down true again. Then I’ll bolt the whole thing up rigid and true, and she’ll be all right.”

Lynch pondered. “We ain’t got the lifting gear. We ain’t got the tools,” he objected. “Nor the men, neither. It’s a dockyard job, even the way you figure.”

They wrangled about gear. Lynch did not have a very clear idea of what was on hand, or what would be needed.

“It’s dangerous,” he said. “You’ll kill somebody. Like …”

“Like what?”

Lynch didn’t answer. He had his hands flat on the table and he was pooching his lips in and out and squinting at Holman.

“I know I can do it, Chief. Like I know I can walk across the room.” Holman stood up and walked up and down the room and sat down again. “Like that,” he said.

Lynch shook his head slowly. “That kind of work ain’t for ship’s force,” he said. “I’m scared you might just make it worse. What if we couldn’t even get underway when the floods come?” His face darkened. “Who’d have to answer to Comyang for that, hey? Me and the skipper, that’s who! Not you and your slopeheads!” His voice rose and he pounded the table. “No, by God! You leave that engine alone! It’s all right the way it is!”

“It ain’t all right the way it is. You seen it kill a man,” Holman said. “Okay, you’re the boss. But I wish you’d let me do it.”

Lynch stopped glaring. “I just got an Irish feeling all up and down my back that it’d be bad luck,” he said. “Let sleeping dogs lie. She steams, don’t she? Hell, they’ll scrap her in another year or two. Why bother?” He wanted to smooth things over.

“Yeah, I guess. Well …” Holman stood up.

“Have another cup.” Lynch reached for the bottle.

“No thanks. I have to get ready for patrol.”

Holman went out. He was very disappointed. He was wondering if he dared to go to Lt. Collins, over Lynch’s head.

Since talking to Burgoyne, Holman had not been making every liberty at the Red Candle. When he went there, he talked to Scharf, if there was no other German at that table. Several times he talked with Banger Knox of the
Woodcock
, who sometimes came in. He avoided Maily. He did not believe she favored him, but Burgoyne’s saying that had made him feel dimly responsible for her, and he did not like it.

On his shore patrol, forbidden to drink, he watched her with the others. She had a few shared jokes with them by now, but she never once put aside her forced smile and her false hostess manner. It was her armor. Late in the evening Holman ordered a supper of shrimp and rice and pork bits and asked Maily to share it. It would save her owing Shu that much more, he thought.

“I’ll be delighted, Jake,” she said.

They ate at the German table, because no one was using it. She wore a warm-looking brown dress with a white lace collar and she kept up her bright, false screen of chatter. She wanted to know all about the Nevada desert.

“I don’t want to talk about Nevada,” Holman said. “I hate Nevada.”

“I hate Hunan,” she said. “I hate China.” “I like Hunan. What do you hate about it?”

“Oh … many things. Because it’s where I am, I suppose. And I can’t get away.”

Her screen was breaking down. Her voice was different, sad and tired, and she looked very soft and helpless with the new look on her
face. He thought she wanted to tell him something, but when he drew her to the point she recoiled.

“I did something very bad. Don’t ask me where or what,” she said. She was looking down and pushing shrimps around in her bowl. “I believe this is my punishment. This is hell.”

“Punishment! I think you’re good,” he said. “Good people ain’t supposed to go to hell.”

“I’m bad. But you’re good.” She raised her eyes. “You’re strong and good. Why are you in hell?”

“I’m bad.” He could hardly meet her eyes. “I belong in hell. I like it in hell.”

She dropped her eyes. “If you could have anything you wanted, Jake, what would it be? Do you know?”

He thought about that. “I guess to know everything there is to know. Or fly to Mars, like John Carter,” he said. “But if you mean what’s possible, I’d like to do a certain repair job on the main engine, out on the ship.”

She smiled faintly. Before he knew it, he was pouring it out to her, all about Po-han and Chien and the engine and what he had to do and how they wouldn’t let him do it. She did not understand the technical part, but she was very sympathetic. It made Holman feel better. He scowled when he saw Perna coming toward their table, carrying a drink. Instantly, Maily put on her hostess face.

“What do the camels eat, in the Nevada desert?” she asked.

“Let me tell you about the grizzly bears on Boston Common,” Perna said.

It was a standing joke to kid Maily about America, because she asked so many questions. Holman did not speak to her again that night until he was rounding up the liberty party at midnight. Then, fleetingly, she gave him her natural smile.

“I’ll pray that you get your chance, Jake,” she said softly. “Goodnight. And thank you for the dinner.”

His chance came a few days later. Lynch got another letter and he could not stand it any longer. He applied for twenty days’ leave to go
up to Hankow and see about that teashop and decide one way or the other. His going left Holman senior engineer aboard. Holman thought about it for a few hours, long enough for Lynch to get safely out of Changsha, and then he went to see Lt. Collins. He stood stiffly just inside the door, holding his hat, and asked permission to disable the main engine. He explained the job and Lt. Collins understood without trouble. But he bit his lip and would not give permission.

“Isn’t that a pretty big job for ship’s force?” he asked.

“It’s a lot of work. It’ll mess the place up for a while,” Holman said. “But it’s all work we’re able to do, sir.”

“I wonder Chief Lynch didn’t mention it.”

“He knows about it, sir,” Holman said hastily. “Him and me talked it over, what gear we had, how to do it. But Lynch has sort of had his mind all took up lately, sir….”

Lt. Collins half smiled. He knew about Lynch’s troubles.

“It’ll cut repair work next summer almost in half, lining up that soleplate,” Holman said. “I’ll guarantee a smooth-running engine and two extra knots all next summer, sir.”

Lt. Collins hesitated. He still had a slight frown.

“It’s the last and biggest repair job left to do down there, sir,” Holman said. “When it’s done, the plant will be in perfect shape and Po-han and the rest of ’em will be plenty ready to keep it steaming. They won’t need me any more. I’ll be ready to come back on deck.”

Lt. Collins nodded. Holman knew they were both thinking the same thing. He had said he was going to transfer Holman when that time came.

“Permission granted,” Lt. Collins said.

Holman started the job next morning. He felt filled with power and joy and it spread to his men. He told them they were going to drive out the devil that made the engine sick, and winked at Po-han. The engine seemed to cooperate. The big nuts broke easily and the pistons broke free of the rods with one smashing sledge blow on the pullers. Holman and Po-han did the sledge and wrench work. Pai and Lung and Chiu-pa did the rigging. They were good at it. They could walk a ton of metal to wherever they wanted it without banging anything and with almost no halting to shift purchases. All day their chain hoists rattled. They worked at a dead run, Holman whistling cheerfully, Po-han wailing snatches of song, and all of them shouting happy insults at each other. It was as good as being drunk. By five o’clock all the crank bearings and crossheads and conn rods were out and littering the floorplates. Above on the gratings the valves and their spindles, pistons and cylinder covers lay heaped in a jungle of metal. The wash-wash coolies going to hang clothes to dry above the boilers had to pick their way between the heaped metal on one side and the deep, empty cylinders on the other. Pai and Chiu-pa and Lung sat sweating and tired in the L.P. cylinder, like three men in a
barrel, and grinned up at the laundry coolies and called them turtles. They did not know what they were doing, but they had caught Holman’s feeling of power and accomplishment. Holman came and looked down at them, dirty and sweating himself, and made the double thumbs-up sign.

“Ding hao!”
he said. “Knock off now. Today make finish. Tomorrow take out crankshaft.”

Oddly, it seemed to dampen their cheer. They looked at each other and climbed stiffly out of the cylinder.

After supper, Holman and Po-han worked on. The others had gone ashore, but men who felt about machinery as Po-han did never worried about working hours. He and Holman took out the link bars and drag rods and eccentric straps and rods and piled them on the heavier pieces. They finished near midnight, both very tired. Heaped engine parts filled both sides and the only clear space in the engine room was inside the gutted engine. The twenty-foot, flatiron-shaped cylinder block still ran overhead and from it three paired, square columns came down like open archways to rest each on its own section of the soleplate. The heavy crankshaft ran nakedly along at floorplate level with the metal guards off the big coupling flanges between each crank and only main bearing caps left in place. Holman and Po-han stood at the forward end and looked through the empty archways to the white bulk of the main condenser. Po-han had lost his cheer.

“Hey, Po-han! Whatsamatter you?” Holman rallied him.

“I flaid, Jehk. Heart no good.” Po-han patted his chest.

It was the stripped engine, Holman thought. The engine parts, each with its place appointed relative to all the others, and the way they lay heaped now in upside-down, criss-crossed confusion. It clashed with the memory of them all in ordered, living motion. Po-han was thinking that this was a serious thing to be doing to the great metal dragon. Holman tried to reassure Po-han.

“Must fix foundation,” he said. “After, put back, same same. L.P. no more makee trouble. You, me, engine, all happy.”

Po-han grinned weakly. He was still disturbed. Perna came down to write up the log. He looked around and whistled.

“Holy Joseph!” he said. “Looks like a typhoon hit this place!”

“Me and my two-legged typhoons.” Holman grinned. He even liked Perna, at the moment. “We’re taking the knock out of the L.P.”

Perna scratched his long nose. “Won’t be like the same ship without that knock,” he said. He looked around doubtfully. “Think you’ll ever get it back together again?”

He was as disturbed as Po-han, in his own way.

Next morning Ping-wen’s coolies were all at work, but of Holman’s men only Po-han sat forlornly on the workbench.

“Chiu-pa stop homeside. He sick,” Po-han told Holman.

Something was wrong. Po-han was trying to blank his face, but a misery showed honestly through it. Pai and Lung had to visit sick parents, he said. He did not know when any of them would be back.

“I sick too. Must stop homeside litee bit,” Po-han said sadly.

Holman knew it was very serious. He stifled his anger. “You, me, long-time friend,” he said gently. “You speakee me proper.”

Po-han did not want to. Slowly, Holman drew it out of him. They were all frightened, Po-han too. They thought disturbing the engine foundations was bad joss. Lop Eye Shing thought that, and it was his orders to go ashore and stay lost until Holman gave it up. Shing was ashore too. It would not do any good to talk to them, even if Holman could find them, Po-han said miserably. Holman had to keep choking back his anger. Po-han revealed that it was possibly also a rice bowl matter. The constant bearing refits while the ship cruised made up a good third of the repair work. For a wild moment Holman wondered whether Chien had not known all the time what ailed the L.P. He felt sick and angry and helpless.

“We’ll do it alone,” he said. “You, me, Po-han.”

“No can do, Jehk. Lop Eye Shing makee me tlobbah.”

Shing would fire him, Holman gathered. He explained that Lt. Collins had approved the job, wanted it done, and he would not let Shing fire Po-han. Lt. Collins could fire Shing, if he wanted to, Holman said. Po-han would not believe that Lt. Collins had any power at
all over Shing. Holman’s arguing and pleading only made him more ashamed. Finally he crept miserably away.

Holman was alone. He raged inside. He thought of Shing’s sardonic face, with its leering wink and drooping mouth corner, and he smashed his fist into his palm. He was stopped. Wilsey and Stawski would refuse to help. The engine was no concern of Burgoyne’s. It would be no use to ask Ping-wen for help, not against Shing. Lt. Collins would almost certainly tell him just to give up the job. And there was no time. He had to get the root of the job done, at least, before Lynch came back.