The Lady and the Panda (42 page)

18
“the most challenging animal trophy”
Ibid.

18
“This animal is not common”
E. H. Wilson,
A Naturalist in Western China,
vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1914), p. 183.

18
Wilson himself never
Schaller,
Last Panda,
p. 46.

18
There were natural calamities
“Tibetan Guides Get Lost on ‘Roof of the World,’”
Christian Science Monitor,
11 Jan. 1936, p. 2.

19
Injured and shocked
Schaller,
Last Panda,
p. 145.

19
So elusive Journal of the West China Border Research Society
8 (1936).

19
British military attaché
Peter Hopkirk,
Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Secret Exploration of Tibet
(Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1982), p. 231.

19
J. Huston Edgar
Arthur de Carle Sowerby,
China Journal,
p. 337. Sowerby in Dec. 1936 and May 1938 says the two men were together in 1914. Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
says two separate incidents in 1916. Catton,
Pandas,
p. 10, says 1916; Catton spells Huston “Houston.”

19
Spotting something
Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
p. 47.

19
“Waiting for the Panda” Journal of the West China Border Research Society
8 (1936).

19
Considering how many people
Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
p. 49.

19
“like the unicorn”
Hallett Abend, “Rare 4-Pound ‘Giant’ Panda to Arrive in New York Soon,”
New York Times,
20 Dec. 1936.

19
sea serpent
Robert F. Whitney, “New Road to Riches and Fame: Be First to Catch Giant Panda,”
Washington Post,
30 Mar. 1934, p. 10.

19
By the time Teddy Roosevelt's China Journal,
May 1938, p. 252.

19
returning from a central Asian expedition
Roosevelt and Roosevelt,
Trailing the Giant Panda
; and Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac,
Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia
(Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999), p. 492.

19
Funded by a generous patron
“Mrs. Harkness Kidnaps Panda,”
San Francisco Examiner,
19 Dec. 1936;
New York Times,
20 Dec. 1936, just says “more than $10,000.” See also “Two Live Pandas Captured,”
North China Daily News,
7 July 1937.

20
pine for their own pelts
Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
p. 54.

20
“the imaginations of the younger generation” China Journal,
May 1938, p. 252.

20
“panda country along the Tibetan”
Ibid., Dec. 1936, p. 336. American Brooke Dolan's effort was sponsored by the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
And in May 1931 a young German on his team, Ernst Schaefer, shot a baby giant panda in Weigold's “Wassu-land,” the region around the Qionglai Shan in Western Sichuan. It was the second giant panda to fall to a Western gun.

20
Nab a giant panda
Robert F. Whitney, “New Road to Riches and Fame,”
The Washington Post,
30 March, 1934, p. 10.

20
In a civil service Titusville
(
Penn.
)
Herald,
13 Sept. 1934.

21
Heading up
Harkness, “How I Caught the Rare Giant Panda,” part 2.

21
After a few wild adventures
On 27 Dec. 1934,
The New York Times
carried the headline “Four Adrift 5 Days with Water Gone: Griswold Party Finally Reaches Borneo After Struggling with Disabled Motor.” Harkness's group had left a small island at the southern tip of the Philippines aboard the
Faraon,
a small launch carrying several Chinese passengers. The motor died in a swift current leading to the Celebes Sea, and it was soon discovered that little drinking water had been stowed. For the thirty-two desperate people, there was only sixty-two ounces of muddy water in a rusted tank.

The Griswold-Harkness gang took possession of the ship. First, four men were sent out in a launch to get help but returned in failure. Next, the men made a sail from a tent, simply to fight the drift, as they tried to repair the motor. Water was rationed, though Griswold would draw off and hide a quart in what he described as an emergency precaution. The thirst became unbearable over days of brutal heat. The biggest worry, Griswold reported, were the twenty-two “hysterical Chinese” passengers. “Never let anyone tell you that the Chinese are calm in emergencies,” Griswold carped. He and Bill declared martial law, using guns as a threat and staking out a “white side of the deck.” Ultimately, Griswold reasoned, “if it came to a question of one race or the other surviving, we had a good idea which it would be.”

The ante was upped when Griswold spied the dorsal fins of sharks, cutting the surface of the sea silently as the sharks trailed the boat. He had to subdue his own rising sense of panic, grappling with his emotions in private, for, he said, “a white man can't afford the luxury of hysteria in such circumstances.”

There wasn't much evidence of the white nobility Griswold claimed. A member of their own party, dubbed “Scotty” in Griswold's veiled account, did something dirty that none of the Chinese whom Griswold held in contempt had done. Dehydrated and desperate, Scotty stole and guzzled a pint of precious water. And Bill Harkness happened to catch him. Griswold witnessed the scene: “Bill was standing in the narrow alley, and he was fighting for control of himself. His pistol was in his hand and his light blue eyes were menacing in a face white with fury.… Fortunately for Scotty, Bill's pistol had been unloaded for cleaning. The interval had been enough to save his life. Slowest of us all to anger, I don't believe Bill ever forgave Scotty for that.”

Finally, after all the setbacks, the men were able to repair a cylinder and
get the engine sputtering back to life. Griswold, who had seriously thought there might be executions to maintain order, reported in a book he would write later, “There would be no massacre today!” Five days after the disaster began, they reached safety.

The two principals, Griswold and Harkness, took the disaster in stride and simply headed off for a little hunting in Bali, where, with some logistical help from a local rajah, they killed two of the island's soon-to-be-extinct tigers. In Borneo, they plugged a rhino.

When they weren't blasting animals, they were getting blasted. Wherever they went, there were always parties. They even shared cocktails and bawdy limericks in Indonesia with Hollywood leading man Ronald Colman.

In the town of Bima, on an island near Bali, a fat and cheery Dutchman driving a Model A Ford whisked them off to a cottage, where a bottle of Scotch was set out on the porch. Soon a steady stream of locals began to fill the lawn. The party-minded adventurers felt compelled to entertain. It was Bill who recalled that, in the mountains of gear, they had stowed a portable phonograph.

The men unpacked the player along with a number of shiny albums, some by Josephine Baker. Out through the acoustic horn came voices from a world away. And surrounded by the dense, dripping tropical vegetation, the crowd chose Baker's tinny but infectious “La Petite Tonkinoise” as their favorite. Sources:
New York Times,
27 Dec. 1934; Griswold,
Tombs, Travel;
and
China Journal,
May 1938, p. 252.

21
finally reached Shanghai
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda; China Journal,
Feb. 1935, p. 70; and Harkness, “How I Caught the Rare Giant Panda,” part 1.

21
Within weeks
Less than two months into the venture, Bill learned that his father had died in a single-car crash in Arizona. “W. H. Harkness Dies in Crash in West: Former New York Lawyer's Wife Is Hurt in Auto Upset on Way to Los Angeles,”
New York Times,
16 Nov. 1934.

21
His advancement was opposed
Abend, “Rare 4-Pound ‘Giant’ Panda”

21
Early on, Bill met up
According to Smith's letter to Keith Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936, Bill's first disappearance came just after the two had entered an agreement.

22
Smith signed on
Elizabeth Smith to Ruth Woodhull Tangier Smith, 23 Dec. 1936, Floyd Tangier Smith Papers, Library of Congress.

22
Bearing a draft for five thousand dollars Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury,
20 Feb. 1936, says he went missing on March 14, and was found at the Palace on March 20.

22
United Press carried a dispatch
United Press, dateline Shanghai, 18 Mar. 1935.

22
just fine at the Palace Hotel
Ibid., 19 Mar. 1935; and “American Citizen Not Missing,”
Shanghai Times,
20 Mar. 1935.

22
“William Harkness Hunted in China”
Associated Press, dateline Shanghai, 4 Apr. 1935.

22
Bill was found holed up
Hanson, according to
Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury,
20 Feb. 1936, and Hansen, according to Smith to Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936.

22
The fourth panda to fall
Catton,
Pandas,
p. 13.

23
tally of giant pandas
Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
p. 60.

23
“As a result”
Ibid., p. 54.

23
He was ordered to report
“Baby Giant,”
Time,
7 Dec. 1936.

23
A dejected Bill Harkness New York Times,
5 Apr. 1935.

23
“stir the imagination”
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 16.

23
Just weeks before
Gerald Russell to R. J. Reynolds III, 1 Apr. 1965. Russell came aboard in the early summer of 1935. This jibes with Smith's account, (letter 19 Dec. 1935).

23
Cambridge-educated Englishman
Information from R. J. Reynolds, and his correspondence with Ivan Sanderson, who went to school with Russell. Sanderson letter, 16 Dec. 1964.

24
began the journey to Chengdu
Smith to Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936. Russell to Reynolds, 1 Apr. 1965, disagrees, saying they went by steamer. But Russell's memory is faulty on many matters, and Smith wrote the letter with details in 1936.

24
Despite the uncertainty
Oddly, at the same time Bill's China expedition was finally going forward, Griswold, back in New York, was announcing to the press that he and Bill planned to leave for Brazil in September. Their venture, he said, would focus on proving that humans evolved in many separate places:
New York Herald Tribune,
23 July 1935.

24
In July 1935 China Journal,
July 1935, p. 39.

24
near Leshan, in Sichuan
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 17. “Kiating” or Jiading is modern-day Leshan in Sichuan, according to Peter Valder,
Garden Plants of China
(Portland, Oreg., Timber Press, 1999) and
http://www.encyclopedia.com
.

24
unresolved permit problems
Russell to Reynolds, 1 Apr. 1965.

24
By September 30
Smith to Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936.

24
There was no mention of failure China Press,
9 Oct. 1935.

24
Later Smith would even say
Smith to Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936.

24
Instead, Harkness and Smith
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 18.

25
Out of the blue
Catton,
Pandas
, p. 14, says Russell recently graduated from Cambridge in 1935.

25
unaware of Bill's death
Russell to Reynolds III, 1 May 1965.

25
333 West Eighteenth Street New York Herald Tribune,
24 Dec. 1936; and Harkness,
Lady and the Panda
, p. 19.

25
“tough and determined”
Russell to Reynolds, 1 May 1965.

25
“someone bearing his name”
Ibid.

26
Ruth had already
In
Lady and the Panda,
p. 20. Harkness says within days of Bill's death she was thinking of taking over for him.

26
She had the will
“Mrs. Harkness Got His Panda, Explorer ‘Ajax’ Smith Charges,”
China Press,
4 Dec. 1936.

26
“upset all calculations”
Smith to Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936, Field Museum archives.

27
For when he next revealed
Harkness to Perkins, 12 Oct. 1936.

27
They would meet in Europe
Russell to Reynolds, 1 May 1965, says it was France. Harkness to Perkins, 12 Oct. 1936, says London. They may have met in both places.

27
then get an expedition together
Russell to Reynolds, 1 May 1965.

27
“She's as mad as a hatter”
Herschell Brickell, “How a Dress Designer Became the World's Best Panda-Catcher,” “Books on Our Table,” no date or publication on clip, but Brickell wrote for
New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Post,
and
Saturday Review of Literature.

28
“I'd probably”
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 13.

28
She was among a throng
Harkness describes a scene like this of watching the Statue of Liberty in her fantasy work of unpublished fiction, “Jungle Magic.”

28
The crossings to Europe
Harkness to Perkins, 30 April and 29 June 1936.

28
Russell met her in London
Harkness to Perkins, 28 May 1936. She said the martinis in England tasted like dishwater, and the Manhattans even worse. An ice cube for a highball was apparently, she grumbled, a luxury. Worse, the British sense of superiority staggered her. While making her way through a book titled
The English—Are They Human?
by G. T. Renier, she wrote home, “I haven't finished it, but I'm sure they're not.” It was a bit of a love/hate relationship, for she reported that she couldn't tell anymore if she was “an Anglomaniac or an Anglophobiac.”

28
the two left for France
Harkness to Perkins, 30 Apr., 1 May (Hotel du Louvre stationery) 1936.