The Sand Pebbles (66 page)

“I think so. Like cattle getting spooky.”

When range cattle were spooky, any little thing could set them off. They might stampede. Or if one of the herd got singled out in any way, as by breaking a horn and shedding blood, the others would turn on it and hunt it out of the herd and they would hunt it to death. They had a strange, terrible bellowing they only used at such times. Holman was afraid he was the one the Sand Pebbles might single out.

“It’s like a hurt snake, when he starts biting himself.” Farren was still looking hard at Holman. “Know what I mean, Jake?”

Holman went below wondering whether Farren had been warning him. Harris and Krebs and Perna were sitting on the workbench. Holman thought they hushed their talk as he came up.

“We ain’t going to work on the topside no more,” Harris told Holman. “To hell with colors and quarters and all them drills, too.”

“Sure,” Holman said. “That stuff’s all looksee pidgin, anyway.”

“Let Franks run us to mast,” Perna said. “What the hell can the skipper give us, more’n what we got already?”

They were already restricted to the ship. They couldn’t spend money, so fines would not hurt them. There was no brig. Rations could not be reduced more than they already were. Holman wanted to remind them that they could all get general courts-martial when the ship got back to Hankow, and go to a naval prison. They were not able to think that far ahead. They watched Holman narrowly as they talked about it, as if expecting him to disagree. He knew he had better not.

“All I give a damn about is keep her steaming,” he said.

“We’ll keep her steaming,” Harris said.

It was shocking to Holman how fast they fell apart. They just let go. All they had left for bathing and shaving was harsh salt-water soap. Most of them stopped shaving. They had no heart to curse the missionaries who, by being hostages, had kept the British from fighting for Hankow. They cursed each other, instead.

The news did not cheer them. Panic evacuation of palefaces was on in Hankow. America was sending three more cruisers and a regiment
of marines to Shanghai. The British were bringing out a whole new army and fleet from home waters. Even Spain and Portugal were sending warships, in case China had to be whipped again. None of it comforted the Sand Pebbles.

“They can scrap this pigiron any old time they want to,” Wilsey said bitterly at the mess table. “I’ll take a battlewagon in San Pedro.”

“God damn the day I ever come aboard!” Restorff said.

That was how they felt. They were striking out at everything. They would not salute colors any more. They wanted to sneer and strike and hurt. Harris spat into the half-eaten plate of beans and salmon in front of him and pushed it away. It struck Restorff’s plate and spilled. Restorff and Harris cursed each other. They stood up flailing fists across the mess table. Holman and Farren pulled them down and smoothed it over.

In Changsha, things ashore became much worse. It was decided to send all the white women and a good many civilian men down to Hankow.
Woodcock
sailors would take them down in a convoy of steam launches towing wupans and come back alone. It was a brave thing.

It was drizzling rain the day the convoy pulled away from the
Woodcock
. There were two puffing steam launches, each with a mat-canopied wupan lashed alongside like an outrigger. The
Woodcock
men cheered as it pulled away and the
Duarte
sailors manned the rail and cheered as it passed. The Sand Pebbles manned the rail along the main deck. Holman saw Banger Knox and waved to him. The Sand Pebbles saluted on signal, but they would not cheer.

“All right, sailors! Hip hip—” Franks shouted on the boat deck “—hay—yay—yay!”

Only Bordelles and the chiefs cheered. It sounded pretty feeble. Holman did not cheer. He did not want to single himself out. He wondered what Lt. Collins thought about it. Everyone knew that the skipper was extremely touchy about passing honors. When the convoy passed the
Hiro
, the Japanese sailors gave it three loud, shrill
banzais
.

Lt. Collins stopped holding inspections altogether. He never went anywhere about the decks except between his cabin and the quarterdeck, when he came and went from the ship. That was the only part of the topside Farren was still able to keep cleaned up. You could not tell from looking at Lt. Collins that anything was wrong with the
San Pablo
, Holman thought.

Bordelles and the chiefs stayed clean and smart. Welbeck was holding back the last reserves of toilet gear for the boat deck. Holman still shaved every few days, with the harsh salt-water soap. So did Jennings and Bronson. If they stopped, so would he, Holman thought. He felt an increasing danger in being singled out for any little thing.

No one wanted to talk about what had happened. Once, having coffee with Lynch, Holman touched on it.

“Baby ’em along down there,” Lynch said. “We just got to give ’em time. They’ll come out of their sulks.” He seemed not to trust Holman. “The skipper don’t want to have to know anything officially,” he said. “Neither do I. Just keep her steaming.”

“We’ll do that,” Holman said.

Lynch had his own troubles. He had not heard from Shanghai for several weeks. Three or four men were on the quarterdeck when Red Dog finally brought Lynch a letter. Lynch ripped it open and read it. Then he crumpled it in his hand and ran up the ladder.

“What the hell?” Crosley said. He picked up a clipping Lynch had dropped and read it. “Now,
how
the hell?” he asked.

Several men read it. It was a list of passengers leaving Shanghai on an Italian steamer. The entry
Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Lynch, Havana
, was underlined in ink. Red Dog was the first to understand.

“Arf! Arf!” he yelped. “That kid cousin. He wasn’t any cousin! Get it?”

They got it. They whooped with joy and thumped each other’s backs.

“They gone to Cuba with all Lynch’s money!” Ellis gasped happily.

“Even his name they took with ’em!”

“He’s Lynchevitski now,” Crosley said.
“Shitevitski!”

Crosley made a genuine joke about once a year. The rest of the year he just repeated it. Lynch was in for a bad time from Crosley. Holman felt sorry for Lynch. Lynch had rubbed his prosperity in all their faces and he would not have gotten much sympathy at any time. But now the Sand Pebbles were in a mood to laugh at Christ on the cross.

Lt. Collins heard the voices outside his door. One was Lynch.

“I tell you, sir, I got to see him! It’s humanitarian!”

“You know he can’t help you, Lynch,” Bordelles said.

Lynch began shouting. It would not do. Lt. Collins opened his door.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked sternly. “Come inside with it.”

They were all standing inside. Lt. Collins glanced through the letter, to Lynch from a lawyer in Shanghai. Lynch’s woman had bought passports for herself and a Russian man from the Cuban consulate. They had sailed for Havana under Lynch’s name.

“Now that they are Cubans, they are under Cuban law,” the lawyer wrote. “They could probably defeat any suit we might bring, by bribery in Havana. I could not take such a case on a contingency basis….”

“I’m afraid the lawyer’s right,” he told Lynch “You can’t do anything.”

“I want a humanitarian transfer! Right now! To Gitmo, sir!”

“There are no official grounds.”

Lynch was red-faced. His eyes bulged.

“God damn it, sir, she’s my wife! I’m sorry, sir, but she’s my
wife!”
He made a violent clasping motion.

“Watch your language, Lynch!” Bordelles warned. “She was never your wife and you know it. She was technically Chinese when you—”

Lynch whirled on him. “She’s Cuban now! Can’t I be married to a Cuban woman?” Bordelles looked taken aback. “I knew sailors in Gitmo married to Cuban women,” Lynch persisted.

“That’s one for the Judge Advocate General,” Bordelles said. “I think if you married her again now, you would really be married to her.”

“I’m sorry for your misfortune, Chief,” Lt. Collins said. “But even if I could get you such orders, which I could not, there’s no way for you to get out of Changsha.”

Lynch went out. He looked very dejected. Lt. Collins motioned Bordelles to remain.

“How is the feeling among the crew, Mr. Bordelles? Any improvement?”

“It’s worse, sir. In my opinion—”

“Very well. Continue as before.”

Bordelles’ bold young face took on a stubborn look. “If the captain pleases,” he said very formally, “I would like to express an opinion and offer a suggestion.”

“Yes?”

“My opinion is that we are headed for serious trouble. Since mast discipline is of no use to us, my suggestion is that we exchange a few men with the
Duarte.”
He dropped his formality. “We need a shakeup, sir. This crew is too ingrown, too all tied together somehow. They act too much like one person. I’m sure you know what I mean, sir.”

“Sit down.”

He motioned toward the table. The two men sat down.

“It is always a blot on a ship’s name when the crew has to be shaken up,” he said slowly. And on the commanding officer’s record, he thought, and knew Bordelles was thinking that too. “When it is done, the men have to be distributed widely, repeat widely,” he went on. “Here we have only
Duarte
. And Captain Wrigley would not accept a draft of my men in
Duarte
, and give me some of his men, unless I told him officially that I thought the alternative to be mutiny in
San Pablo
. I do not think that. Do you, Mr. Bordelles?”

“In time, potentially, yes, sir, I do!” Bordelles said defiantly.

“Well, I do not. I have faith in my men.”

He had said it all once before to Bordelles, but he explained it
again. The men were casualties of the new kind of war. They would come out of it like magic, if fighting started. Or as soon as they reached a port where they could have women and whisky. But for the time being they were not responsible and they had to be protected.

“Keep clear of them yourself,” he told Bordelles. “Let the chiefs deal with them.”

All officers knew about that. When a man came aboard off liberty wildly drunk, the officers would turn their backs and not see or hear anything, until the man’s shipmates could wrestle him below out of sight. Because if a man cursed or struck a commissioned officer, it did not matter how drunk he might be. He would have to pay the penalty.

“I understand, sir.” Bordelles did not look convinced. “It’s a gamble to save
San Pablo’s
reputation.” He narrowed his eyes. “Only … what if we lose the gamble, sir?”

“I will deal with that when it happens.”

Bordelles cleared his face and nodded. He was resigning the argument. “I was reading some translated abstracts from the native press over in the consulate yesterday,” he said. “Did you know old Craddock was back at China Light?”

“Yes, and with several others. They asked Kuomintang permission to go there. They are renouncing their treaty rights again.”

“Again?” Bordelles smiled. “They know they can’t do that. Anyway, I’ll bet Craddock’s sorry now. The Bolshevik court in Paoshan has sentenced him to death, for rent gouging.”

“They all wish they had the courage to be martyrs. None of them have. Where is Craddock now?”

“Under guard at China Light, I gather. The consul says he can’t act just on the basis of a native press report.”

“Craddock will appeal before long.” Sudden anger shook Lt. Collins. “Damn those people! They are compromising and embarrassing their own government! I wonder how much of it is deliberate?”

“With Craddock I’d say all of it was. That’s how he is.”

After supper the men played cards at the mess tables and laughed about Lynch. It had brought them back together. Holman sat on his bunk and listened. They had to have something to gang
against
, he thought.

“Old Lynch is settin’ up there now, with a bottle.”

“Getting a year older every damn minute!” Perna said.

The door beside Holman’s bunk crashed open. Lynch came in and stood there, swaying. His coat was open and his tie gone. He looked around and focused on Holman.