The Sand Pebbles (54 page)

“I don’t think it’s the same thing,” she said. “I intend to go on seeing Mr. Holman.”

“I was not suggesting that you stop. Just be thoughtful.”

“Let’s pay and go back to the hostel,” she said. “This place is depressing.”

They walked back in silence. She thought about Holman. He
would often forget himself in talking to her and the hard, square lines of his face would soften. He had eager smiles and wistful smiles and a whole gamut of natural expressions which he probably never used, except with her.

It was like bringing a statue to life. She could feel him reaching out to her for form and direction. It was her teacher’s instinct. You could trust an instinct.

Holman knew it was against all the rules. It could not last. He did not think about that in the garden. He just added each time with her to all the others in the place in his memory.

It rained one afternoon and they went to the teahouse in one corner of the garden. It was a noisy, sloppy, happy place, for all its red lacquer rails and pillars and screens of glazed paper set in geometric designs. She spoke in Chinese to the waiters and he felt welcome there. They had a kind of booth that looked out on the garden in the rain.

“I didn’t see any other girls in there,” he said. “You sure it’s all right?”

“It’s all right. It goes with my sweater.”

She still had the hole in her elbow. Someone had given her the sweater. Most of her clothes were still at China Light. They drank tea and ate sweetish rice cakes. The breeze brought a cool, damp, green smell to their table.

“I’ve heard the other sailors call you Jake,” she said. “Is your first name Jacob?”

He grinned. “That’s a nickname. For my initials. My real name’s Joris Kylie.”

“Joris? Is it for some relative?”

“No. Nobody ever had a name like that. It sounds like a girl’s name.”

“Not to me.” She closed her eyes. “Joris. Joris. It makes me see a laughing man on horseback, with a sword and soft leather boots and a gay white plume in his hat.”

“Jorse, Jorse, ride a horse.” He laughed. “That’s what the kids used to yell at me in grade school.”

“You see? It’s in the name.”

“They were making fun of me. I never have liked that name.”

“I’ve never heard of another girl named Shirley. My mother found it in a Brontë novel,” she said. “I used to think it was a tag-along imitation of my big brother Charley. The boys used to tease me and call me
Chirley
, because I tagged after them.”

“Shirley.” He closed his eyes, just as she had. “Shirley. Shirley.” He felt his cheeks warming with the pleasure of saying it. All it made him see was her sitting beside him, her eyes soft and smiling, just as if he were still looking at her. “Shirley. Shirley,” he repeated, and opened his eyes. “All it makes me see is you.”

“Because it’s my name.”

“I’d like to call you Shirley. And you call me Jake.”

They called each other Jake and Shirley the rest of that afternoon. Holman felt a tingle to it each time, like fingers touching flesh. They did not talk about serious things. But when they walked back into the British Concession at dusk, the enchantment vanished.

“Goodnight, Miss Eckert,” he said.

She marveled at the speed of his transformation. He did not yet know himself how he had changed. But she knew. His shyness was gone. They could talk candidly, without fear of offense. When he spoke of his shipmates, what had once been irritation was now more like compassion.

“This never-fight-back stuff. It’s breaking their hearts,” he said. “You know, I never saw it that way before.”

It was not breaking his heart. But he was going to be less happy than ever aboard his ship now, she knew. He still lacked much. He had no sense of religion and no developed interest beyond machinery. She could see the rising question and search behind his puzzled eyes.

They went every afternoon to the teahouse and had a modest meal with their tea. Their private booth above the garden took on a shared intimacy. She told him all about China Light and her duplicity with Cho-jen. She spoke of the emerging Chinese nation and the part Cho-jen would play and her own part in helping Cho-jen and the
other boys. She was trying to reveal to him the central theme of her life, to form that concept in him, so that he might find his own central theme.

“I know,” he said thoughtfully. “You need a reason for being alive. Machinery ain’t—isn’t enough.”

It was raining that day and they had unconsciously moved closer for warmth. She saw the question in his eyes that he could neither formulate nor she answer. She yearned to answer it for him. Somehow, their shoulders touched. His arm went round her waist. She began to melt into him. Then she stiffened.

Instantly they were several feet apart and staring strickenly at each other. He was pale.

“I didn’t—it happened—I didn’t mean—”

He was pathetically anxious that she not think he had been trying to treat her as a sailor’s girl. She had to reassure him.

“I know. It surprised us both.”

Her heart was thumping. She saw the same fearful understanding in his face.

“We mustn’t let it go on.”

“No.” He was red now.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t see each other again.”

“I’ll stay away.” He stood up. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to spoil this garden for you.”

“It’s my fault.” She gulped and breathed in deeply, to hold back tears. “I thought I was being a teacher,” she said. “But I was only being a woman.”

“I guess people can’t really unmix themselves,” he said.

Then he was gone, quickly and quietly. She felt she had wronged him. My dedication is to Cho-jen, she reminded herself. Cho-jen, who is to be one of the great trees of China. She caught one glimpse of Holman crossing the garden in the rain. She began quietly to cry.

It was just as well, Holman thought next day. Liberty was stopped for all hands. Wuchang had fallen. The gearwheel flag flew on Dragon Hill. It was the old Chinese story of sellout. Some of the defending
troops had mutinied and opened the gates. The Sand Pebbles were very gloomy that day.

Over in the native city they were going crazy with joy. People thronged and danced along the bund. Flags and paper lanterns bobbed above them, and poles with strings of popping firecrackers. Boats of all sizes plied back and forth from Wuchang. As the day passed, the mood ashore turned ugly. Thousands of people had starved to death in Wuchang. Agitators were said to be parading bony corpses, with teeth marks on them, through the native city, to inflame the people.

The forces ashore manned the perimeter defenses. The Americans stood by under arms aboard their ships, ready to land instantly. There was bitter talk on the
San Pablo
quarterdeck. To the Sand Pebbles, how they could blame the starvation in Wuchang on the palefaces was beyond all sane conjecture.

That was how things stood about suppertime, when a runner came off to the ship with a note for Frenchy Burgoyne. Maily was waiting for him at the Green Front.

“There is no legitimate reason for which I can grant you special liberty, Burgoyne,” Lt. Collins said.

The man, standing beside Bordelles and twisting his white hat, looked dumbly, whitely desperate. He was getting ready to plead. That would be sticky.

“However …” Lt. Collins wrote a few lines asking about an ammunition order, folded the paper and sealed it in an envelope. He wrote: “Guard Mail: Navy Godown” on the envelope and handed it to Burgoyne. “Put on a guard belt and take this to Navy Godown,” he said. “How long it takes you and the route you go are your own responsibility. You must take all the consequences if a patrol catches you misusing it.”

“I do thank you, sir!”

Burgoyne went out, trembling with relief. The two officers looked at each other.

“A mistake, Tom.”

“I’m glad you did it, sir.”

“But a mistake. A small evasion of duty.” Lt. Collins swung his chair around. “Sit down. This is an ugly thing already. Tell me all you know about it.”

All hands had been assuming the woman was lost on the way from Changsha, Bordelles said. They thought Burgoyne should have unshacked in Changsha, as the other men had. Anti-foreign feeling was building to a crisis in Hankow; Burgoyne was in for more trouble with her. But the crew thought Burgoyne was soft in the head. It was not a general morale threat; it was Burgoyne’s private trouble.

“The trouble simply is, he seems to love her,” Bordelles said.

Lt. Collins frowned. Love was not as common a hazard in China as syphilis, but it could destroy a good man much more surely. With sixteen years of four-oh service, Burgoyne should have been immune.

“He’ll be tempted to jump ship. He needs protection.” Lt. Collins drummed with his fingers. “I could have him transferred to Shanghai with the next convoy.”

“You saw how he was, sir. It would break his heart.”

“He’d get over it. But I don’t want to lose an experienced engineer, the way things are shaping with our Chinese. That’s why I’ve kept Holman.”

“He might send the woman to Shanghai,” Bordelles suggested

“Hmmm.”

No junks could get through the war zone. Chinese passage on treaty steamers was impossibly expensive, because of the squeeze the native staffs were taking from rich refugees. But he had heard that a few Chinese passages were kept available at regular prices for servants of saloon passengers. He suggested to Bordelles that someone might take the woman down that way.

“Let’s both ask around about it ashore,” he told Bordelles. “It’s a bother. But it might help save a good man.”

Things became worse ashore. Up north Feng, the Christian warlord, came out for the gearwheel. He stabbed Wu in the back. Wu was out of the game. It made the Chinese very cocky in Hankow. They began tearing down the ancient wall around Wuchang. The cruisers had to drop downriver. The U.S.S.
Duarte
, a large gunboat, went to take winter duty at Changsha. The
San Pablo
would winter in Hankow.
Liberty started again, but only for chiefs and officers. Petty officers could go to the Royal Naval Canteen.

Burgoyne found a way to jump ship from the canteen and get to the native city without being caught by patrols. He would come aboard in early-morning darkness. The quarterdeck watch had to cover up for him, checking him in on the log and the nameboard. If he were caught, it would go to Comyang, and a lot of men would be in trouble. The Sand Pebbles grew resentful of the accumulating risk. They could not reason with Burgoyne. He rebuffed fiercely every suggestion that he unshack. He was getting a dark, wild look.

“I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. I ain’t asking you to cover up for me,” he said. “Log me absent. But I got to keep going over, long as I ain’t stopped cold.”

He wanted no sympathy from them. He would talk about Maily only to Holman. She had been held under arrest by gearwheel agents in Ta-li, he said. They had not hurt her, only asked questions every day.

“Or so she says. She’s almighty changed, Jake,” Burgoyne told Holman. “She’s quiet and sad and peaked in the face. She’s back strong on that God stuff.”

“How are things going with you ashore?”

“Worse than Changsha. It’s that same being pushed back and froze out.” Burgoyne tugged savagely at his mustache. “Tung Li already raised our rent five a week. He’s got to pay off the block warden, account of us.”

“You got to get her to Shanghai someway. I got some money I could throw in. The guys would help.”

“I ain’t a beggar!” Burgoyne flared. Then he slumped. “Well, maybe I am. But the skipper’s working on it for me.” He told about Lt. Collins’ plan. “We just got to hold on until he finds somebody.”

“I’ll jump ship with you tonight. I want to see Maily.”

“No. It’s a miracle every time I get away with it,” Burgoyne said. “Maily worries enough about me. She already told me not to let you take the chance.”

“Well, tell her I wanted to. Tell her I wish I could come.”

The coolies were squeezing unmercifully and doing less work every day. Permanent gear was disappearing from all over the ship. Clip Clip raised haircuts to a dollar and no one joked with him any more. Propaganda sampans hung off the
San Pablo
. The coolies seemed afraid to go ashore, except to the concessions. Two of the Fangs had been arrested in the native city. They were still gone.

“Too much tlobbah come,” Big Chew told Holman. The burly cook was worried. He said they were all going to have to join the boatmen’s union. “By-m-by no can,” he said, shaking his head. “Tlobbah come, Jehk!”

Holman took all of Burgoyne’s shore patrol duties in addition to his own. That put him ashore every third day tramping the streets in a squad of riflemen. When he had the dawn patrol, he always worried that his squad would be the one to catch Burgoyne sneaking back to the ship.

“I won’t surrender. I’ll make the bastards shoot me,” Burgoyne had said.

They were called shore patrol, but their real purpose was to back up the police. They marched with fixed bayonets, to make a better show. Often Chinese hooted and spat at them. It was dismal work. The streets were littered. Broken windows had paper or rags stuffed in them. It was often rainy and cold. When they tramped jingling past the Alliance Hostel, Holman always looked for Shirley. He never saw her.

He thought about her very often. He could remember every one of her changing expressions and every tone of her voice and everything she had said. His cheek remembered that first time, the softness of her breast, and his guilty arm remembered the last time. He could still sweat with the sudden fear that had stricken them both. He did not have any opinion about it. He just went over and over it in his mind.

One cold, wet day Riley was the squad leader and Holman was the senior petty officer in the squad. Riley took note of that, not happily. He remembered Holman from the power plant. Soon after they
began their patrol, a police messenger on a bicycle called them to trouble in the ex-German Concession. They followed the messenger at double time for six blocks and halted, puffing, on a corner.

A dozen tall, bearded Sikhs were waiting there, with Chinese assistants. The Sikhs grinned and said, “Hi, Johnny.” Halfway down the block a ragged blue coolie mob was surging and yelling under a sign that read
GRAHAM EXPORTS
. Glass tinkled and torn white paper snowed out the windows. Riley squinted, sizing it up. Then he spat tobacco juice into the gutter.