The Sand Pebbles (64 page)

Always, the watchers were on the bund abreast the ship. Usually they were a score or so of loitering coolies. Often enough they were a full-scale hate parade, with massed flags and slogans yelled like football cheers. They were like a shot in the arm to the Sand Pebbles.

“Bear down on them holystones, you Poisoners of China!” Farren would sing out. The men would laugh and scour away all the harder at the teak. They were getting a rough, hard look to their faces and hands.

Every morning they stood colors and ran through their drills. Ship and crew looked smart. The chiefs and officers were always meticulously turned out in pressed blues and shined buttons. That
was the work of Hu-bing and Yen-ta, the only two Chinese left aboard. They were not coolies. They were enlisted men in the steward branch. No white man could enlist in that branch. Stewards had special uniforms with “USN” on them but nowhere any eagles or anchors. Hu-bing and Yen-ta did a very good job on the chiefs and officers.

Life was plain and simple. The Sand Pebbles could not go ashore. They could not even visit the
Duarte
, because of the bad feeling over there about the boycott. The
Duarte
took radio guard and Waldhorn moved over there to stand watches. The only news the Sand Pebbles got was the scuttlebutt Red Dog brought back from his guard mail trips. The
Duarte
took most of the military details, but sometimes the
San Pablo
would furnish an armed guard for one of the oil company launches. There was always competition for that among the Sand Pebbles. It was a breathing spell off the ship, and sometimes a man could sneak a good meal.

The food aboard was all dry stores, beans and rice, corned beef and canned salmon. The potatoes had run out. Jennings was rationing each man one slice of raw onion at dinner and four ounces of beer at supper, to guard against scurvy. The men made a small pleasure of it. They sipped their beer with slow relish. They looked at their onion slices against the light, to admire the pattern. They pulled them into rings and nibbled each ring slowly. They argued whether vinegar or salt was best with raw onions.

Holman kept the machinery in good working shape. He did not care about appearances. He became quite friendly with Krebs, the new man. Krebs did not have much ship’s spirit, and he seemed to think that Holman did not either. He would talk freely to Holman.

“They’re a funny, clannish bunch on here, ain’t they?” he asked Holman one day. “They make me feel like I undercut this Burgoyne guy, to steal his job or something.”

They were beside the workbench. Holman knew what Krebs meant, but he could not explain it.

“They don’t know they’re doing it,” he said.

“Harris keeps telling me I ought to let my mustache grow out. Did Burgoyne have a long mustache?”

“Yeah. And he chewed snoose.” Holman pushed back a strong memory of Burgoyne standing just where Krebs was standing, on that morning the patrol had caught him. “Frenchy had lots of tattoos,” he added.

“It’s like they want me to
be
Burgoyne!”

“They do. Only they don’t know it, not that way.”

“Well, I’m Krebs!” He hit the vise handle and spun it. “Krebs wants off this pigiron! Krebs hates coal burners! That’s who I am!”

When the thirty days were up, they declared Frenchy Burgoyne a deserter. All hands except Holman knew that he had drowned in the Yangtze, but there was no corpse or witnesses to prove it, so on paper he was a deserter. The word would go out to civilian police all over America. For years to come somewhere in North Carolina police would keep an eye on Burgoyne’s kinfolks. They would be hoping that Burgoyne might come visiting and they could nab him and claim the fifty-dollar reward.

By regulations, Burgoyne’s clothing had to be sold at auction. Farren stenciled a red D.C. on each piece and piled the clothing on a mess table. Franks, as chief master-at-arms, came down to conduct the auction. It was a break in the monotony. Franks quickly made it exciting. He worked the men up and pitted them against each other.

“Come on, you cheapskates!” he rallied them. “What else you got to spend your money for?”

That was true. They also knew they could not buy any new clothing in Changsha. They crowded around the mess table and bid each garment up far past its worth. They cheered winners and hooted at losers who chickened out. The auction raised almost three hundred dollars. The money would go to the welfare fund, which had once been the coolie fund. But now they could not hire coolies or buy beer or charter a joy junk to come alongside. The excitement ended glumly, with that reminder.

One item remained. It was a framed photograph of Burgoyne and Maily, which had hung inside Burgoyne’s locker. Franks held it up and looked at it, cocking his head.

“I guess you’d call this a keepsake,” he said. “I ought to send it to his next-of-kin.”

“You can’t,” Bronson said. “Deserters’ next of kin ain’t supposed to get anything at all.”

“Besides, it shows him with a pig,” Harris said. “They wouldn’t like that in North Carolina.”

“All they hate in North Carolina is niggers. California is where they hate the Chinks,” Crosley said.

“Who do they hate in New Jersey?” Stawski asked him.

“They hate big dumb Polacks.”

“We hate frogfaces up in Michigan,” Stawski said.

“All you Polacks can kiss my royal Canadian,” Crosley said.

“All right, you guys. Don’t get personal,” Franks said. He waved the photograph. “Anybody want to bid on this?”

No one did. Franks dropped it over the side into the river.

Chill, damp days passed. Shortages pressed on them. The
Duarte
would not give them anything. The Chinese barber from the
Duarte
came over now and then to give haircuts. He charged two Mex dollars, which was worse than Clip Clip’s final prices. The Sand Pebbles hated the
Duarte
crew. The ship’s nickname was
Die Hard
.

“I hope them chinchy bastards all die with a hard on!” Red Dog said. The Sand Pebbles repeated the joke with relish.

The paint was gone. Soap ran short. Jennings held out most of the remaining soap for the galley and dishwashing, for health reasons. They used the last of the boiler compound in scrubbing topside paintwork. The alkali in it cut dirt and grease, but it made their hands red and cracked and painful. They could not keep the whole topside clean. They had to let the starboard side go, except for the quarterdeck and a stretch of boat deck outside Lt. Collins’ cabin. He restricted his inspections to the port side, which faced the bund. The
San Pablo
did not look any different to the watchers over there.

They were always over there, all day long, watching the ship and throwing the hate. When they built up a real hate storm with bugles
and placards and mass shouting, the Sand Pebbles would man the rail and hate back at them. They would jeer and hoot and make obscene gestures. Afterward they would feel dull and listless.

“There’s so God damned many of ’em, it uses a man up hating ’em back,” Farren said.

Lynch always waited on the quarterdeck for Red Dog to come back with mail. If Red Dog had a letter, he would wave it above his head as the boat neared the gangway.

“Arf! Arf! A letter from Looby!” he would shout at Lynch.

“Her name is
Liuba!”
Lynch would say, taking the letter.
“Mrs. Lynch
to you, you redheaded wonk!”

Lynch had plenty of brandy and he would invite Holman up for coffee and talk about his problems. Liuba always had a different deal lined up in Shanghai, but none of them came off. Lynch wished she would quit horsing around and buy whatever she could. The gearwheel was closing in on Shanghai. He wrote her long letters of advice.

“But I always tell her use her own judgment,” he told Holman. “She’s plenty smart. She’s looking for a really good deal. She’ll find one.”

Holman sniffed the fragrant coffee and said nothing.

“Find yourself a good woman, Jake,” Lynch urged. “Don’t wait till you’re as old as I was.”

“I think about it sometimes,” Holman said.

It was Shirley he thought about. He could not take such thoughts seriously. They were only daydreams.

The sardines and Vienna sausage ran out. The onion ration was sliced thinner and Jennings cut the beer to two ounces a day. The food was mostly beans and rice and canned corned beef. The Sand Pebbles remained cheerful about it. “Duckbutt’s doing the best he can,” they told each other. They became very fond of Duckbutt’s rice pudding. He made a lot of it and on Sundays he would put raisins in it.

For their Christmas dinner the
Duarte
gave them three canned hams and some hard candy. Bordelles and the chiefs came down to eat Christmas dinner with the crew. Duckbutt had baked the hams
with brown sugar and cloves. With great ceremony Tullio brought in plum puddings flaming with some of Lynch’s brandy. The men all cheered. Each man got a small bag of hard candy. It made for a pretty good feeling.

Holman could not share the feeling. He was ashamed because he could not. He was afraid that they would know it about him. The Sand Pebbles seemed to him like kids playing a game. They were make-believing happiness behind a thin, papery screen. By Christmas, even Krebs had joined in. Holman was afraid that just by knowing it was a game he was going to spoil it for them. He had to watch what he said and keep apart. But the ship was too small for a man to keep apart.

On New Year’s Eve Lynch sent down three bottles of brandy. The Sand Pebbles got mildly drunk in the compartment and Red Dog started them singing. Holman wanted desperately to join in, but he could not do it. His voice was stiff in his throat and it made a mocking croak in his own ears. When they started on the “Wing Kang Lung” song, he went below to relieve the watch. The song followed him down.

“I’ll relieve you early,” Holman told Krebs. “Go up and get some of that brandy before it’s all gone.”

“Ai yah!” Krebs said, grinning. “You’re a shipmate, Jake!”

He ran long-legged up the ladder. Holman checked over the machinery. The song beat through the overhead at him. He tried to listen to the machinery talking, and he had lost the sense of that language. It was just noise. He paced the floorplates, thinking.

What if I were to desert and get across the hills over to China Light? he thought. He knew he would not ever do such a stupid thing. But it was all right to think about it. He began recalling all his visual memories of China Light. He wanted the whole picture of it in his mind.

What crowded into his mind were memories of Shirley. They came fusing and mingling, curve of cheek and chin, sweep of hair, white neck and throat hollows, droop and curve of mouth, her eyes merry and sad and frightened and angry and very tender like soft light. She came like all the facets of a jewel blazing at once. The unsummoned intensity of feeling disturbed him.

He pushed her to a distance and thought about China Light. He wished he could have just once seen the machinery in that sugar mill they couldn’t make work right. The daydream lasted him all through the midwatch. He did not even notice when they stopped singing up above.

The Sand Pebbles still wanted to fight. They still talked wistfully about Plan Red. They thought surely someone would be careless somewhere and start a fight. Then it would explode all along the river like a train of powder. They wanted that to happen.

At other times they talked wistfully about getting out when the spring flood came. The word was that Changsha would be completely evacuated then. Only a few paleface civilians were still in Changsha, as custodians of company property. They were not making any money. They were harassed and threatened and were always having trouble with the few coolies they still had. There were supposed to be six or eight white women ashore, mostly missionaries. They were all waiting to get out when the floods came.

One clear, cold day the
Duarte
signaled electrifying news. A mob was attacking the British Concession at Hankow. Lt. Collins went to a conference of commanding officers on the
Duarte
. In his absence the
San Pablo
seethed with excited speculation. All the men crowded on the quarterdeck.

“The Limeys will fight for Hankow like it was London,” Farren said. “This is it, guys! Plan Red!”

They named the U.S. ships they knew to be in Hankow:
Truxtun, Isabel, Pope
and
Pigeon
. Blood was thicker than water. Sure as shooting started, those ships would be in it. And so would the ships in Changsha.

“Come over here! Look at them militia lining out on top of the wall!” Ellis called, from the port side.

Holman and some others went over there. Changsha had the word, all right. The junks were battening hatches and there were very few coolies on the bund. Changsha was like a ship clearing decks for action. Lt. Collins came aboard, his face fierce and eager, and sent the Sand Pebbles to their own action stations. They went to their guns spring-legged and alert and ready for anything.

Holman had to go below. They did not get up steam, since they could not go anywhere and they had to save on coal. Lynch came down with the dope and the engineers clustered around him by the workbench to hear it.
Woodcock
and
Duarte
men were guarding the white civilians, Lynch said. The Japs were looking after their own. All the
San Pablo
had to do was to defend herself.

“That’s enough, by God! They got it in for us,” Krebs said. “They’ll hit us first and hardest.”

“We’ll give it back double!” Perna shook his fists. His eyes gleamed. “How about it, Harris?”

“Ten times, by God!” Harris clashed his teeth and grinned like a shark. “We’ll mow ’em like the tall corn!”

As more radio news came to the
Duarte
, they signaled it to the
San Pablo
. Crosley would call it out word by word as he received it and men repeated it all over the ship. The news was perplexing. It was really a coolie mob in Hankow, and not soldiers. It was still attacking. But there was no news about casualties, or ground won or lost. It was very strange. Because with a coolie mob you just chopped into them and they broke. Or else they ran over you. Either way, it was over quickly.