The Sand Pebbles (15 page)

Holman’s ear picture was ugly because of the
thud
in the low-pressure crank bearing. Something was wrong with the L.P. and old Chien and his coolies had to refit the bearing about every five steaming days. The first day it would run almost quiet, but also hot, having
to be nursed with soapy water and oil flooding and reducing speed until it wiped itself enough clearance to run easy. But then would begin the muted
thud
each time the great crank came round, and the shiver that ran dumbly through the ship. By the fourth day the
thud
would be loud and jarring and, to Holman, dangerous, although no one else minded it. Then Chien would refit it again.

Chien did not want Holman to watch the bearing work. He and his coolies would hunch over it and conceal as much as they could, and it was not often that Holman’s topside military duties gave him time even to try to watch. Chien never asked Holman to inspect and approve a bearing job or any other repair job. He would get anyone else who had paper authority, even Stawski, rather than Jake Holman. It irked Holman to see a stupid fireman like Stawski gravely inspecting and approving a job he could not possibly have done himself. Holman ached to refit the L.P. crank bearing with his own hands, coolie work or no. He was sure that after a few such refits he would begin to see a wear pattern that might tell him what was wrong.

“It has to be out of alignment some way,” he told Lynch one day. They were drinking coffee at the throttle station.

“That thump’s been in there for twenty years and nobody’s ever been able to take it out,” Lynch said. “It ain’t alignment. I’ve seen that engine in dockyard stripped to the soleplate with piano wire through every cylinder. Nothing’s out of line.”

“I bet I could take out that thump, or else find out exactly why I can’t,” Holman said. “There ain’t no mysteries about machinery.”

“Big talk, Jake.”

“Give me a chance to prove it, Chief.”

“Oh hell, old as this ship is, ready for the scrap heap when they commission the new ones—” Lynch gestured impatiently and spilled his coffee. He was irritated. “Let old Chien handle it. Hell, she steams, don’t she?”

“Chien’ll keep her steaming,” Burgoyne said. “He always has.”

Holman dared not press it, because Lynch had already cautioned him several times about cutting in on Chien. The old man had been complaining. Scuttlebutt persisted that Holman and Chien were
feuding. Yet all that Holman did was to walk around on steaming watch inspecting, and learning the plant with his ears, and teaching Po-han. Chien didn’t want anybody to learn. He wanted Holman to stay by the throttle and exercise only paper authority while Chien himself kept the real authority, the only kind of authority that the machinery acknowledged, and the only kind that was real to Jake Holman.

Chien was always around, working his coolies, and his blank old face and stiff shoulders expressed disapproval whenever Holman left the throttle station. Po-han would not talk about Chien. He was very much afraid of Chien. Holman sometimes worried that Chien might strike at Po-han, who was a very junior coolie. But Chien struck in other ways. Small things began to go wrong on watch. Holman would pick them up with his ears as often as with his eyes and go directly to the trouble and set it right. Then he would show Po-han, and that was how he struck back at Chien. It was a feud, but a very strange one. Once the vacuum began dropping, which meant an air leak, and Holman’s ears picked up the tiny, trilling whisper clear across the engine room and through all the greater noise. It was an old hidden, forgotten valve on the air pump suction line, which had probably been a gauge connection many years ago. Holman went to it and reached under the floorplates and closed it in one sure motion, without even looking to find it. Then he rose and turned to meet Chien’s stare. The old man’s yellowed teeth were bared, and his face expressed pure terror.

Often on a steaming watch Holman would lean with his hands on the protecting handrail and watch the L.P. crank as it thumped around. He knew there was misalignment, whatever Lynch said, and he hoped he might spot it with his eyes. He would watch the ton of moving metal sweep out its thirty-inch circle, half its orbit above the floorplates and half down in the crankpit, like rolling day and night. He could not spot anything. But his ears picked up an almost inaudible whispering. It seemed to shift and vary and came from everywhere at once. His ears could not pin it down and identify it. It was a tiny, fretful web of little mutterings and it was trying to tell him something.
He would stand there for long minutes straining to interpret it. Then he would feel the hair bristle on the back of his neck and he would turn and Chien would be looking at him with that flat, bony old stare.

One morning in mid-August a white porpoise crossed their bow. An hour later they got orders from Comyang in Hankow to go at once to Paoshan on the Chien River, where antiforeign riots were supposed to be in progress. They were already on their way to Paoshan and all it meant was raising speed to the maximum of eight knots, which would get them to Paoshan in late afternoon instead of next day. No one was very excited.

The drill that morning was landing force, and they rolled full packs. Holman was in Bordelles’ section, with Farren as squad leader and Crosley, Shanahan, Ellis and Tullio as squadmates. They fell in on the fantail and it was the same as always, Bordelles inspecting gear and arms and taking a swallow from someone’s canteen to make sure the water was clean and fresh. Then he went to the bridge to report.

“Farren, you figure we really got to go ashore and shoot somebody?” Holman asked. He wanted them to show the same tension that he was feeling.

“Not shoot,” Farren said. “The warlord’ll stop it. Maybe General Pan’s men will have to shoot.”

They all explained to Holman. Warlords sometimes had reasons for
not stopping riots, but when they could save face by blaming it on a gunboat, they would usually stop them. They would explain to the people that if they did not more gunboats would come and kill everybody. Just the presence of the
San Pablo
moored under the wall with its flag and guns would probably calm Paoshan right down, Farren said.

“They’re beating up native Christians and looting ’em,” Crosley said. “Likely Pan wasn’t squeezing enough protection money and he just wanted to put the fear of Christ in ’em, to up the squeeze.”

“Yeah, but what if he won’t stop it? Or can’t?”

“Then we’ll stop it,” Farren said.

“But how do you stop a riot?”

“Walk at ’em with guns,” Crosley said. “If they don’t give ground, fire over their heads. Then they’ll break and run.”

“They’ll be howling in Chinese,” the Red Dog said. “You won’t understand it, Jake, but what they’ll be yelling is: ‘Here comes the great and terrible Red Dog Shanahan! Run for your lives and hide all your virgins!’”

“Hide all their
samshu,”
Ellis said.

“Arf! Arf!”

“No, but God damn it, I mean, what if they shoot back?” Holman persisted. “Come at us?”

Farren shrugged. “We’ll make the best fight we can. We’ll mow the bastards like hay, while we last.”

They all nodded. It made Holman know how deadly seriously they took all the drills that were only an irksome make-believe to him. He still did not believe he was to going to shoot anyone, or be shot at. He looked across the rail at the river and the green, swampy delta land from which white birds were flying upward screaming. He did not want to look at their faces. He did not know these shipmates of his.

“Hell, don’t talk like that, Jake,” Tullio said. “They won’t come at us.”

“They’ll run,” Crosley said. “Slopeheads always run.”

“Silence in ranks!” Bordelles had come back to dismiss them.

“Chief Franks’ section will go ashore with the captain,” he said.

“We’ll stand by in reserve aboard. Leave your packs and your guns on your bunks.”

It was just like any other drill to all of them but Holman.

When Holman took the steaming watch after dinner, Wilsey was making eight-point-two knots and the thump in the L.P. was worse than Holman had ever heard it. The greater power was wiping and pounding the soft metal more rapidly, and the more the clearance increased the worse it pounded, and it was like a snowball rolling downhill. At one o’clock Holman sent for Lynch.

“Chief, we got to stop and take some clearance out of that bearing,” he told Lynch.

“I heard it that bad before.” Lynch was scornful. “We only got about three more hours.”

“She won’t make it.”

“Chien says she will. I already told the skipper she will.”

Lynch went up angry. The knock became worse. It took on a sharp, bone-thudding quality that made the floorplates chatter and the wrenches behind the workbench jump in their hangers. Old Chien hovered near the L.P., watching it narrowly. He was acting worried. So were Po-han and Burgoyne worried, and Holman’s nerves fined to a wire edge. At two o’clock he sent for Lynch again.

“I’m scared, Chief,” he said. “I’m going to cut to half speed.”

“Make your turns.”

“She’s about to carry away, Chief,” Holman said. “She’ll blow a head and scald us. She’ll flail the rod through the bottom and
sink
the Goddamned ship!” He reached for the fireroom annunciator. “I’m going to slow down.”

Lynch blocked his hand. “No, you ain’t! Make your turns! By God, that’s a military order!” He was frowning and his lips were pooching in and out. He was angry and afraid too, and he was being stubborn.

“Put that in writing!” They had to shout at each other above the engine racket. “Put that on paper, with your name under it, and
I’ll do it,” Holman shouted. Lynch shook his head. “Okay, then, take this throttle!” Holman yelled. “You and Chien can have the watch, you’re so Goddamned sure about it! Come on, Frenchy!”

He made to leave and Lynch stopped him. “We’ll secure,” he said, and walked around the engine. “Chien! Burn down your fires!” he yelled at the old man. “Pretty soon makee stop.”

Lynch went up and Chien went to the fireroom. Holman began easing in the throttle. Lynch came back down with Lt. Collins, who looked angry and impatient. Chien came back and his coolies laid out wrenches and a sledge. The job would not take very long. Wilsey and Perna and Stawski came down in whites and drifted around. They wanted to make a show of concern and being useful, because the captain was down there.

When the steam was low enough they anchored. It seemed very quiet, with the jarring thud stopped. Holman stayed at the throttle to position the L.P. crank, which would have to be at top center. The control lever worked a small reversing engine that could slide the great, curving, double-bar links back and forth through the main engine and hold them at any point. When they were in mid-position the three slide valves were supposed to be closed and the engine stopped. But the valves leaked and, even with the steam shut off at the throttle, air leaked up the piston rods to create a pressure imbalance with the vacuum in the condenser, and the engine would still run. It would lie quiet until enough air leaked in and then it would suddenly jump, one way or the other. To hold the L.P. on top, Holman had to keep jiggling the lever very slightly across mid-position. The tremor of the control lever was magnified to an oscillation of several inches in the links and the great crank rolled ahead and checked and back and checked and Holman held the engine rocking there, all the trembling tons of it instantly responsive to his hand, and it felt like an extension of his own bone and muscle. He was showing Chien how well he could control the engine. Then they put in the jacking gear, pinning the worm in place engaged with the worm wheel on the shaft, and the engine was in a secure mechanical
lock. Holman locked the control in mid-position and went around to watch the job.

The crank was still trying to roll. It was working through the backlash of the jacking gear with sharp clicks each way, but the gear held it. The crank bearing was like a beer barrel split lengthwise and clamped around the crankpin with two big bolts on each side. They would have to back off the nuts enough to drop the bottom half slightly and take out a thin metal shim from each side and reduce clearance, and then slug the nuts up tight once more. It was emergency procedure and the coolies were not used to it. They were all afraid to get down into the crankpit and hold the wrench. Chien shrilled at them and they screamed back.

“Why don’t they begin, Lynch?” Lt. Collins asked. “You told me ten minutes.”

“I’ll get down there and hold the wrench,” Holman said.

“My takee lench! My takee lench!”

Chien did not want to lose face by working, but even more he did not want Jake Holman getting in on any repair job. He took off his black satin jacket, to keep it clean, and his bony old man’s chest was hairless and smooth and showed every rib. He climbed down and held the wrench and the work went fast. The heavy-set coolie named Chiu-pa swung the sledge. When the shims were out he slugged the nuts up full due again and Chien handed out the wrench. Chien was tightening the set screws that locked the nuts when the crank came grinding at him with a high, dry squeal.

Holman flew to the control lever. He heard the one great scream as the crank crushed the old man’s chest and drove his air out, and then he had the crank checked and trembling back on top center. Chien slid down out of sight, to the bottom of the crankpit. They were all running and yelling now. Lt. Collins started into the crankpit and Lynch pulled him back. Wilsey was prying up a floorplate. They were going to go into the bilges and pull Chien out through the manhole in the soleplate and that would twist and wrench hell out of the broken old man.

“Lynch, come here!” Holman yelled. “God damn you, Lynch,
come here!”

Lynch came. He was pale and staring. Holman pulled Lynch’s hand to the control lever.

“Hold her on top!” he said, and ran.

Chien was doubled over flat in the crankpit, head between legs. Holman straddled him in the slippery oil and water and reached between his own legs to grasp the skinny arms at the shoulders. He straightened up, lifting Chien carefully, and the crank kept nudging the back of his head with short, dry squeals. Lynch could not hold it as steady as Holman had. Lt. Collins leaned down to take Chien from Holman, and the old man’s face passed an inch away from Holman’s face. The eyes were open and the pupils very large and there was no expression in the eyes. Chien’s mouth was open and bubbly blood came out of it and his chest was all torn and bloody. Jennings was on the floorplates with blankets and a stretcher, and when Holman climbed out of the crankpit they were already carrying Chien up the ladder.