The Sand Pebbles (58 page)

“There, by God!” Lynch said, puffing, hands on hips.

The fire roared. The opium smell in the fireroom thinned out. Holman glanced at the steam gauge.

“Watch steam, Chief!” he warned.

Lynch tapped the gauge. The pointer jumped past the red mark. Lynch’s eyes bulged.

“Christ! She’s gonna pop!”

“Don’t blow safeties!” Lt. Collins said.

“Hit ’er with feed, Jake!” Lynch yelled.

He kicked the ashpan door shut. Holman ran out and twisted open the feed check. The feed pump pounded.

“Start pumps, Frenchy! Kill steam!” Holman shouted at Burgoyne.

It was too late. The safeties popped, with a sustained roar. The mountaining steam flickered its shadow over the engine room skylight. Sweet-stinking black smoke spread like a pall above the ship and its circling wupan satellite. The
San Pablo
was roaring up all the world to come and witness her disgrace.

Through it all Burgoyne sat unmoving on the workbench with his head in his hands. He was sunk in his own trouble. But the Sand Pebbles had forgotten about him in the ship’s larger trouble.

At dinner, they were all angry at the mess tables. They hacked their teeth into their food and chomped and glared and wrangled. They could still hardly believe it. It was treachery. They wondered which coolies were involved.

“Every slant-eyed, slopeheaded one of ’em, I bet!” Harris snorted.

They agreed that no one could blame the ship or Lt. Collins for it. The coolies were just aboard working for squeeze and cumshaw. They had no official connection with the ship.

Holman could not get Burgoyne to eat dinner. He would not even speak or look up. Holman went away sadly. He was haunted by the thought that Maily and Burgoyne might have been caught in the backlash of the mob he had stirred up.

Well,
mei yuh fah tzu
. It was not much comfort.

Lt. Collins went back to the flagship. Canteen liberty was stopped for that day. Only Lynch got ashore. He was busy selling his teashop. His wife and her kid cousin would be going to Shanghai in the convoy Friday. In mid-afternoon a motor launch made the gangway and two white civilians tried to come aboard. Crosley had the watch. He stopped them.

“Nobody comes aboard and nobody leaves,” he said. “Them’s orders.”

The men broke out cards to show him. The older one, a thin, gray man, tried to step up on the quarterdeck. Crosley put a hand on his chest.

“Take your hands off me, sailor!” the old man snapped. “I’m a taxpayer and a representative of the press. Any day I can’t come aboard an American warship, I want to know about it!”

“This is the day, Joe,” Crosley said.

Bordelles came. He looked pale and stern. He backed up Crosley.

“It’s splashed all through the native press that your servants have been smuggling opium,” the thin man said. “Give us a statement.”

“See the Flag Secretary. I can’t talk. Orders from way, high up.”

The old man argued. He had been to Flag and gotten a runaround and he was angry about it. “Right here’s where the story is!” he kept saying. Bordelles could not placate him by saying that he was under orders. The old man began to threaten.

“If an American warship has been smuggling opium, the American people certainly want to know about it!” he said. “My paper can break an admiral like a matchstick, if he tries to dupe the American people!”

“My admiral can break me like a matchstick,” Bordelles said.

“Let me, Jason.” The chubby, younger man in the tan coat took over. He tried to trap Bordelles. “Give us a little something, like crumbs for the birds,” he wheedled. He had a smooth Irish voice. “We won’t quote you. How many of the sailors are involved?”

“Sorry.”

“Deny it, then. Call it Red propaganda. Where do you think the stuff came aboard?”

He could not charm or trap Bordelles. In the end, he threatened too.

“The American people can make it very hot when they get their moral dander up,” he said. “Talk and protect yourself. We’ll protect you.”

That snapped Bordelles’ patience. His face turned red.

“Shove off, or I’ll turn the firehose on you!” he commanded.

They chugged off, very angry. Crosley watched them go, hands on hips.

“Them sons of bitches. Them God damned cannibals,” he said unbelievingly.
“Picking on their own people! What in hell’s the
matter
with ’em?”

Even Harris was glum at supper. The men talked in low voices about the power of Stateside newspapers. They knew in a vague way that many Stateside newspapers, like Borah and Kellogg and even Coolidge, seemed to be pro-gearwheel. They blamed all that on the missionaries sending lies home. But now the newspapers had their own reporters in China, and they had seen a sample that afternoon. It gave them a shadowy, cut-off, stabbed-in-the-back feeling. It was a nasty, unpleasant feeling.

“I guess even Coolidge is scared of the papers,” Farren said.

“The papers kind of
are
the American people,” Wilsey agreed. “Like the guy said.”

They only mentioned Burgoyne once.

“You’d think, with all this new trouble, Comyang’d forget about hanging Frenchy,” Farren said.

“Once the machine starts grinding, they always hang you,” Harris said gloomily.

It was a very subdued supper. They were all afraid the machine was grinding for Lt. Collins and the whole
San Pablo
.

At sunset the mocking wupan went away. It had circled the ship all day like a grinning hyena. When Haythorn announced the captain’s return, the men all drifted to the quarterdeck. They just wanted to stand there shoulder to shoulder while Lt. Collins came aboard. It was a kind of closing ranks in the face of trouble.

Lt. Collins did not look at them, but they knew he understood. He went up to his cabin looking worried and angry. A few minutes later Burgoyne came on the quarterdeck. He would not speak or look at anyone. He went up the ladder to the boat deck like a mechanical man.

“He’s going to see the skipper,” someone whispered.

They waited, wondering, not talking. Franks came to the head of the ladder.

“Holman down there?” Holman pushed forward. “Come up here, Jake, Franks said.

Holman went up. Burgoyne was standing behind Franks.

“Frenchy just told the skipper he won’t be a prisoner-at-large,” Franks said. “You and your engineers will have to stand watch and guard him.”

“Don’t put a guard on me, Chief. I might have to kill him,” Burgoyne said. He coughed rackingly, bending over. “Hold me with metal, something stronger than muscles,” he said. “Shackle me to the rail, or something.”

Franks looked at Holman and shook his head pityingly. Holman felt a brief flash of the hell that Burgoyne had been in all day. He understood. Burgoyne had to keep trying while life was in him. Suddenly Holman wished that the patrol that morning had killed Burgoyne.
Mei yuh fah tzu
would not work for an American.

They shackled Frenchy Burgoyne with a leg iron from his ankle to his bunk rail. He lay there, fully dressed and on his back. His face was deep-lined and hard as iron and he would not speak. Only his fierce, animal eyes were alive, turning and shifting. He made it very uncomfortable in the compartment.

The Sand Pebbles stayed out on deck until taps. Then they went in and to bed with none of the usual joking cross-talk. Holman had a hard time going to sleep. He caught himself thinking some very strange thoughts.

At reveille Burgoyne was gone. The leg iron was sawed through, half of it still locked on the bunk rail. Perna found the hacksaw blade in the blankets.

“He was here when I come off deck sentry watch at four,” Stawski said. “Ellis let him get away.”

Ellis was main deck sentry. They called him in.

“It come on a rain squall about five,” Ellis said. “I went in the galley.”

“That’s when he went.” Farren kicked Burgoyne’s shoes. “He must’ve swum for it.”

Wong brought in the morning coffee. They drank it standing up, uneasily silent, avoiding each other’s eyes. They all knew the Yangtze was a fast, treacherous river.

“Anybody know how good Frenchy could swim?” Farren asked finally. “What do you think, Jake?”

“I think Frenchy tried as hard as he could,” Holman said.

No one wanted to say it. At last Harris said it.

“Breaking arrest on top of all the other charges, he’d land in Forty-eight for sure,” Harris said. “He’s better off if he didn’t make it.”

Forty-eight was the naval prison at Cavite. If a man went in there with a scrap of spirit, the marines would beat it out of him or they would beat him to death.

“You guys stop mooning like a bunch of nutted women!” Harris said brutally. “Frenchy was overdue for it. It was like a mad dog bit him from the first time he ever saw that pig.”

That was Frenchy Burgoyne’s epitaph. The Sand Pebbles sat down to a troubled breakfast.

It was a troubled day. Despite the cold drizzle, a dozen propaganda sampans came out. They knew the
San Pablo
was wounded in the propaganda war and they were cutting it out for the kill. They sculled round and round the ship shouting slogans like warwhooping Indians circling a wagon train.

Lt. Collins had been up half the night writing a report. He and Bordelles went to the flagship without holding morning quarters. Lynch had to go ashore to close the sale of his teashop.

“Take care of things, Jake,” Lynch said. “I won’t be back until after I see Liuba and Valentine off on the steamer tomorrow.”

The ship’s trouble did not bother Lynch. He was too excited. His Hankow lawyer was moving his office to Shanghai too, and Lynch was going to have someone down there he could trust to draw up papers. Things were working out nicely for Lynch.

Lt. Collins was gone all day. The coolies did no work. The ship was in a kind of shock. Holman could not rest. He paced the floorplates in the engine room. He did not believe that Burgoyne was dead. Sometimes you could glimpse the whole blueprint of a man’s life. There was no luck at all in Frenchy Burgoyne’s blueprint.

Holman’s troubled night thoughts returned to plague him. He absolutely could not share Maily’s belief in God’s curse. But it did really seem as if some hateful god was torturing Frenchy Burgoyne.

In late afternoon the rain turned to a heavy, wet snow. It was too much for the propaganda sampans. They stopped their circling and went home. It was a blessed relief. Bordelles came back and had the word passed that canteen liberty would be resumed. No one must talk to reporters. Holman rated liberty. When he put on his
dress blues, he dug back in his locker and found the Belgian revolver he had taken from the gangster in Changsha. He pouched his undershirt inside his drawers to make a nest for it. The thirteen-button flap of his blue trousers held it securely and invisibly in place.

The
San Pablo
table was all the way aft in the long, smoky room. A big crowd was there that night. Farren and Red Dog sat with Holman. They drank beer glumly and talked about Burgoyne. The other two did not want to believe that Burgoyne was alive.

“He’s alive,” Holman insisted. “He ain’t got that kind of luck.”

Up front some British sailors began singing. The other tables were coming in on the choruses. It was a rollicking song.

The chorus crashed out:

On the
ai yah
they all stamped feet and thumped tables. It shook the place. The Sand Pebbles did not join in.

“Know something? We never put the alarm out on Frenchy,” Red Dog said. “I just now thought. Things was too fouled up this morning.”

“That’s right. We never held muster,” Farren said.

It jolted Holman. “You sure, Red Dog?” he asked. “Because I think I know where Frenchy is. If I could sneak him back aboard …”

“He wouldn’t be breaking arrest.” Farren nodded. “If it ain’t down on paper, it never happened.”

They looked at each other. It seemed a cheering upturn in the run of things. But Burgoyne would still be in deep trouble.

“It’s a damned shame!” Red Dog said. “You’d think them newspaper guys would get on that, instead of riding the ship about opium.”

“They might make Comyang cancel the court-martial,” Farren said.

“They can put the fear of Christ into the navy,” Red Dog said. “If I didn’t know that before, I know it now.”

They talked about getting in touch with a newspaperman and getting Burgoyne off the hook altogether. It cheered them. Red Dog began beating his hand in time with the song.

“Jesus!” Farren pointed up the room. “Look who come in!”

It was the chubby Irish reporter. The men looked at each other in wonder. It was a sign, their nods agreed.

The reporter stamped snow off his feet and brushed it off his tan overcoat, while he looked around. He stopped at a
Truxtun
table and they pointed aft. He came down the room behind his big Irish grin, directly to the
San Pablo
table. He held up his hands in mock surrender.

“I promise I won’t ask you boys one word about you-know-what,” he said. “Can I join you on those terms?”

“Sure. Sit down.” Farren kicked out a chair.

The man draped his white scarf on the back of the chair and sat down. He unbuttoned his overcoat and put a full bottle of White Horse on the table.

“It’s whisky weather tonight, fellers,” he said. “I’m Don Fahey. Call me Don. What the hell, I’m South Boston Irish and I belong in this kind of place.”

“Arf! Arf!” Red Dog said. “Scollay Square!”

“Revere Beach! You’re a Mick yerself!”