The Sand Pebbles (46 page)

Once aboard, they began coming out of it. When the feeling was spread over all the Sand Pebbles, it did not weigh so heavily on the men of Bordelles’ section. Harris cursed furiously, and it raised all their spirits. The incident had been reported to Comyang in Hankow and it would probably go all the way to Coolidge in Washington. There would be a very big flareback, the Sand Pebbles told each other. More American gunboats, and very likely British and Japanese gunboats too, would come to Changsha. There would be a showdown
with the gearwheel and they might even shell the city. Talking about it, they grew almost cheerful again.

But Farren sent Oh Joy to fetch Clip Clip. He had Clip Clip cut off all his hair and beard and then shave it all to smooth, white skin. He kept testing with his fingertips.

“Shave against the grain,” he told Clip Clip. “Get this little patch here. And here. And here.”

Farren looked like a pale stranger when it was done. He had a strong, handsome face. There was a dimple in his chin that no one had ever seen before.

For three days they waited for the big flareback. Radio traffic was heavy. Lt. Collins seemed to spend half his time ashore. On the fourth day he had the crew mustered aft for a talk, and they knew they were finally going to get the dope. Facing them from the stern grating, framed by the big hand-steering wheel behind him, Lt. Collins looked very serious.

“Men, we are plunged into a new and strange situation,” he began. “The first thing we must do is to try to understand it. The students are the key to it. I want you to understand about the students.”

Chinese respect for the students was a hangover from the old Imperial days, when scholars had been the most powerful and important people. It was a kind of superstitious worship of learning. It had some weird angles. Ignorant coolies thought the printed word was sacred. Everywhere in the cities they had stone receptacles for waste paper with words on it and someone would take the words away and burn them reverently. Missionaries had been mobbed and even killed when they used newspapers for toilet paper. But the weirdest thing of all was that the Chinese believed anything in print had to be true.

“The students are supporting Chiang Kai-shek,” Lt. Collins said. “They put lies in print and send the material ahead to the army. Other students read it to the people and even to General Wu’s soldiers and they believe it. They are undermined before they go into battle. They desert or surrender. General Chiang has done very little honest fighting in this campaign.”

Heads nodded. That explained a lot of things, in a way.

“Now about the particular lies they use,” Lt. Collins went on.

They blamed all troubles, droughts, floods, epidemics, bandits, famines, locusts and warlord battles on the treaty powers. They were promising the people a kind of Chinese heaven-on-earth as soon as they canceled the unequal treaties. All warlords who obeyed the treaties were running dogs. The students spread fantastic lies about the treaty people.

“For instance, our little sortie against the pirates last month,” Lt. Collins said. “They fired first, and we killed only one pirate. But the consul has a clipping from a local newspaper stating that we killed thirty unarmed people, including women and children. They have suddenly begun making similar fantastic charges against gunboats on the main river. That is why we have the new orders not to fire back blindly against ambushers, because if we do the students will make another big lie of each occasion. We are up against lying as a matter of planned strategy, and it forces a new counter-strategy on us. Because you cannot stick a bayonet into a lie.”

Farren muttered. Lt. Collins looked sharply at him.

“What did you say, Farren?”

“You can always stick a bayonet into a liar, sir,” Farren said.

“Yes, and the unkilled liars will call him ten women and children.” Lt. Collins shook his head. “We are fighting lies now, not armed men. It is an accident of history that we in
San Pablo
, here in our home port of Changsha, are the first American armed unit to come face to face with this new thing. How we face it can make it our great honor or our disgrace. I intend that it shall be our honor. Now, then!”

He slapped fist into palm and scanned them all. Holman stiffened involuntarily. All the men stiffened.

“It is our military honor to obey orders without question,” Lt. Collins said soberly. “I will not go further into the background of our orders. I will say only that our government has decided for the present not to treat the current fighting as just another warlord squabble. For the time being, we will treat it as an authentic civil war in which we must be very carefully neutral. We will avoid the least shadow of suspicion of interference in any purely Chinese affair. We will cruise
only between treaty ports and we will put armed parties ashore only in concessions. We will not use force to protect American property. We may use force to protect American lives, but only American lives, and only when it is not possible to protect them in any other way.”

He paused for breath and wiped his face and hands with a handkerchief. It was very warm, but he was sweating more than he needed. Holman could feel the stir of dismay running along the ranks.

“Some of you, our shipmates, as we all know—” He stopped and coughed. “It was an unpleasant experience. But it was not dishonorable. Understand that. It was highly honorable. It was a magnificent display of moral courage. I am proud of every man who took part in it. I want you all to understand about moral courage. I know it is not easy. We are trained to fight men, not lies. We are trained to face death and wounds, not public scorn. But to win this fight against lies, we must find the moral courage to endure public scorn and even personal indignities without flinching or retaliating. That is the sacrifice the service of our nation demands of us now. I know we all have the moral courage to make it. And that is all I have to say to you. Are there any questions?” His eyes swept the ranks. “Yes, Farren?”

“You’re saying there ain’t going to be any big flareback, ain’t you, sir?” Farren said.

“Not for the time being. I’ve explained, it’s not that kind of struggle.”

They broke ranks and all they carried away with them was the heavy knowledge that there was not going to be any big flareback. The whole ship was feeling dismally like that hour or so on the consulate veranda, Holman thought.

“This is a council of war, gentlemen.” Lt. Collins smiled wryly. “The new kind of war.” Bordelles and the three chiefs sat around the table with him. They all had coffee. “Franks, how would you say the men are taking it?”

“Not a bit good, sir.” Franks shifted. “I hear a lot of griping, the bad kind. They been shoving and kicking the ship’s coolies around. I’ve had to raise hell with Ellis and Stawski about that.”

“How do we know them coolies ain’t all pulling for the gearwheel, behind them stupid, flat faces they got?” Lynch asked.

Franks smiled grimly at Lt. Collins. “You see?” his eyebrows said.

“Now that the
Woodcock’s
in port, they’ll open their canteen at the British consulate,” Bordelles said. “The men can go there and drink beer, get off the ship, anyway.”

“Won’t help, sir, not if I know sailors,” Franks said. “They’ll just pick fights with the Limeys.”

“Well, what do you suggest, Chief?”

Franks scratched his head. “Can’t think of anything, here in port, sir,” he said. “But next time we go cruising and get shot at, it would help a lot if we fired back.”

“Provided we can see our targets.”

“We can always pretend we see them,” Bordelles said.

“We are presumably men of honor,” Lt. Collins said coldly. He had been expecting one of the chiefs to suggest that, but not Bordelles.

“We don’t all have to see ’em, sir,” Franks said. “We could put somebody up in the crosstrees, somebody with sharp eyes and a good imagination.”

Bordelles smiled. All the heads nodded. Lt. Collins frowned.

“No,” he said. “In this ship we will obey orders to the letter.”

Franks shrugged. There was a painful silence. Then Welbeck spoke.

“It would help if they knew what was coming. If they could see an end to it,” he said. “It would help my morale too, if you want the truth, sir.”

Lt. Collins steepled his fingers. “I don’t know what’s coming,” he said. “I’ve talked several times to the new Hunan Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. I think he wants to be decent and reasonable. But he seems to have little authority over the troops and even less over these worker and peasant unions they are forming. If that goes on, I don’t know what’s coming.”

“Well, then, damn it!” Lynch said. “Excuse me, sir.”

“Their Bolshevik advisers,” Bordelles said. “Bolshevism is what’s coming.”

“A possibility.” Lt. Collins nodded. “The problem seems to be,
what strategy will best prevent that? Not all their leaders are Bolshevist. Chiang certainly is not. But he is strongly nationalist. He will abrogate the treaties if he is not stopped, make no mistake about that.”

“Bolshevism is Russian nationalism,” Bordelles said.

“They are trying to make it seem Chinese nationalism. The consul is sending urgent reports. No one at home—” Lt. Collins broke off. He was not going to criticize the government.

“I don’t savvy that stuff, sir,” Franks said. “Neither will the sailors. For them, it’s got to be simple.”

“You’re right, Chief!” Lt. Collins nodded vigorously. “It’s beyond all our competence. We will simply carry out our orders.”

“Hell, maybe Wu will kick the tar out of the gearwheel up at Hankow,” Bordelles said. “The other northern warlords are moving troops down. We don’t have to assume Chiang’s going to win.”

“That would sure fix things, wouldn’t it?” Welbeck said hopefully.

“Yeah, but Wu’s still losing, from all the scuttlebutt,” Franks said. “The guys got to see some clear way out of all this, sir. Even if it’s pulling the ship clear the hell out of China, the way the missionaries want. Even if it ain’t true. But they need to see some kind of end, sir.”

Lt. Collins thought about that. An idea was forming. It took shape as the council dragged on. The sailors were what they were, very fine men of their kind, but they needed help in this strange situation. As he thought out a possible help, it began to seem more and more pleasing and plausible even to himself. It was indeed a help. He grew impatient and dismissed the council.

“Wait a moment, Chief. I want to talk to you,” he told Franks.

The chow was very good, but they were all griping. They were beginning to repeat themselves, Holman noted.

“Us moral heroes!” Harris sneered. “I’m a moral coward, myself. I say kill the slopeheaded, gearwheeling sons of bitches!”

“If we got to run when we get shot at, let’s run all the way out of China,” Farren said. “Might as well, all the good we can do.”

“This ship can’t go to sea,” Burgoyne said. “It ain’t seaworthy.”

“We ought to put in for a transfer, every last bastard of us, and sign it in a round robin,” Wilsey said. “That’d make Comyang take notice.”

“Speak for yourself,” Burgoyne said. “Put in for your own transfer.”

Harris slammed down his coffee cup, slopping it. “You want to go back to scrubbing your own clothes, Wilsey? Eating beans and diving your own bilges? Sleeping in bunks four high with somebody’s dirty ass in your face every which way you turn?”

“No, I don’t,” Wilsey said. “I just meant—”

“Then stick it out with us moral heroes!” Harris said. “Let’s fight for what we got, any way we have to.”

Chief Franks came into the compartment, husky and cheerful looking, and stood between the two stanchions forward of the mess tables. The men all stopped eating and looked at him.

“Sailors, I got something to say,” Franks began. “It ain’t official. I’m an enlisted man, just like you are, and what I got to say is only my idea of what the score is. But I don’t want it repeated, and I don’t want the wrong people to hear it.”

His serious manner impressed them. “Get out of here, Wong!” Bronson ordered. Men got up and closed the doors and stood by them. Others pulled down windows. Franks nodded approval.

“All right, here’s how I figure it,” he said. “These gearwheelers are all Bolsheviks and they sprung up out of nowhere without warning. They don’t give a damn about human life and we do, and that’s why they got us by the balls. Because we got missionaries, with a lot of women and kids, scattered all through China, and if we start anything now, the gearwheelers will take it out on them. But once we got all our sheep in the barn, it’ll be a different story. I guess you all heard something about Plan Red?”

Heads nodded eagerly. Plan Red was an old scheme for all the treaty power gunboats to work together in case of another emergency like the Boxer Rebellion.

“Well, I’ll tell you about Plan Red,” Franks went on. “First, everybody pulls in to the treaty ports. If it’s real bad, we give up
Chungking and Changsha and fall back on Hankow. But we can get the whole fleet up to Hankow. We put in troops to hold the concessions there and we got China split from Hankow to the sea. Then we counterattack, back to Changsha and Chungking, and we’ll see who’s got who by the balls then.” He grinned fiercely. “That’ll be the day, sailors!”

“Us and the Limeys, hey, Chief?” Bronson said.

“The Japs, too. And the Frogs and Wops. All of us.” The men began talking and Franks waved his arms. “Keep in mind, this ain’t official,” he said. “Might nothing come of it. General Wu at Hankow is on our side and he could still win up there. But the missionaries are trickling in to the treaty ports, not too fast, I figure so as not to tip our hand, and maybe the day’s coming.”

“A lot of the biblebacks are for the gearwheel, so I hear,” Bronson said. “You figure they might hold back, just to foul up Plan Red?”

“Them at China Light,” Crosley growled.

“They might,” Franks agreed. “I think when we’re sure about that we’ll just go ahead and let ’em take what’s coming to ’em.”

All the men began talking excitedly. Franks went out. He left a wholly different spirit behind him. Things made sense again to the Sand Pebbles.