The Lady and the Panda

by Vicki Croke

  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.

  CHAPTER TWO: INHERITING AN EXPEDITION

  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.

  28 “More than ever” Harkness to Perkins, 1 May 1936.

  28 She was, by the time Harkness to Perkins, 1 June 1936.

  28 “Sometimes I think” Harkness to Perkins, May 1936.

  29 From Suez on…“all life” Harkness to Perkins, 16 June 1936.

  29 A whiskey soda Harkness to Perkins, 15 July 1936.

  30 Past oil-supply W. Robert Moore, “Cosmopolitan Shanghai, Key Seaport of China,” National Geographic, Sept. 1932, p. 316.

  30 Harkness took in Ibid., pp. 316–32.

  31 Concrete rafts Amanda Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” National Geographic, Oct. 1937, p. 494.

  32 It was thick and heavy “The Shanghai Boom,” Fortune, Jan. 1935. Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” mentions the smell too.

  32 Shanghai possessed Harriet Sergeant, Shanghai: Collision Point of Cultures 1918/1939 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), p. 2. Professor Sarah Queen changes Sergeant's “jenao” to “rinao.”

  32 It was a test of character Stella Dong, Shanghai 1842–1949: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City (New York: William Morrow, 2000), p. 75. This is the best, most rollicking history of Shanghai ever. It is as exacting in its historical detail as it is vibrant in its storytelling.

  32 At least Harkness could Harkness to Perkins, 16 June 1936.

  32 refugees Marcia Reynders Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora of Shanghai (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001). In an e-mail to author from author Ristaino: “The first German refugees came in 1933 and included professionals who were able to integrate into Shanghai and other parts of China. They were not a large group, but they were aware of what was happening in Germany. The real flow began after Kristallnacht.… The largest group arrived in 1939, having read the signs of what was to come.” 32 fifty nationalities Moore, “Cosmopolitan Shanghai,” p. 325.

  32 He wasn't averse Floyd Tangier Smith to Ruth Woodhull Tangier Smith, 22 Apr. 1937, Smith Papers.

  33 The conservative old Palace Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” pp. 490–91.

  33 Harkness was on a budget All About Shanghai: A Standard Guide Book, with an introduction by H. J. Lethbridge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935; reprinted 1983), p. 86.

  34 a German Jew Harkness to Perkins, 22 Aug. 1936.

  34 Speaking of her youngest suitor Harkness to Perkins, misdated 12 July 1936, should be 12 Aug. 1936.

  34 Among her many new pals Harkness, Lady and the Panda, p. 242.

  34 “WHOOPEE!” All About Shanghai, p. 73.

  34 great verandah of the Race Club Harkness to Perkins, 25 Aug. 1936.

  34 a lush, green twelve-acre Dong, Shanghai, p. 30; Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” p. 507.

  34 candy-colored neon signs Vicki Baum, Shanghai '37 (1939; Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 359: “lighted up with white, red, green, and blue lights.”

  34 At the Chinese clubs Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” p. 491.

  34 “closed up Shanghai” Harkness to Perkins, August 1937.

  35 Cocktail hour All About Shanghai, p. 75.

  35 “a really entrancing” Harkness to Perkins, August, 1937.

  35 When he had to make trips Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, p. 15; All About Shanghai, p. 76; and Pearl S. Buck, My Several Worlds (1954; New York, Cardinal Giant Pocket Books, 1956), p. 207. White Russians—czarist loyalists— had started pouring into Shanghai in 1919, defeated in their campaign against the Bolsheviks, or “Reds.” They took advantage of Shanghai's status as an open port, providing sanctuary to stateless people. The downside was that they received no protections under their nation's extraterritoriality and were, therefore, subject to harsh Chinese law. Without legal privilege, and not speaking English, the language used for business, they were in a tragic situation. Destitute and degraded, they embarrassed fellow westerners by how low they sank in order to survive—the men working shoulder to shoulder with Chinese laborers, or as bodyguards for rich Chinese businessmen and warlords; the women—many famously beautiful blue-eyed blondes—singing or dancing in cabarets, or just as likely turning tricks on the street. Still, most claimed to be descended from royalty, and Keane's girlfriend possessed the legendary transcendent Russian haughtiness. Pearl Buck wrote that the White Russians were arrogant even while begging. Given a handout, they might complain, “Have you no better shoes than this?”

  35 “an outlaw's haven” Dong, Shanghai, p. 117.

  35 In her letters home Harkness to Perkins, 25 July 1936.

  35 He may very well have been “War Lords and Dope in Szechuen: Danish Journalist on Life in the Provinces,” North China Herald, 7 July 1937.

  35 The two explored Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, p. 19.

  35 “All of China” Harkness to Perkins, 25 July 1936.

  36 Through such wanderings Dong, Shanghai, p. 13.

  36 Once only the drug Ibid., pp. 6–8.

  36 feeding frenzy Sherman Cochran, ed., Inventing Nanjing Road: Commercial Culture in Shanghai, 1900–1945 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1999), p. 4.

  37 It called itself Zhongguo In conversation with author, Sarah Queen, professor of Chinese history, Connecticut College, 10 Apr. 2003 and 24 Jan. 2004.

  37 All strangers were barbarians Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945 (New York: Grove Press, 1971), p. 26.

  37 “to make money” North China Herald, 9 Sept. 1936, p. 466; and Richard Pyke, “Why Shanghai Is Not China,” Listener, 12 Aug. 1936.

  38 In the drenching, one-hundred-degree heat Harkness to Perkins, 12 Aug. 1936.

  38 Some days she would pinch Harkness to Perkins, 27 Aug. 1936.

  38 “ZIANG TAI” Harkness to Perkins, 27 Aug. 1936.

  38 “There is really” Ibid.

  38 “advertising sales” Moore, “Cosmopolitan Shanghai,” p. 330; and Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” p. 507.

  38 “a great sprawling rambling” Harkness to Perkins, 25 July 1936.

  39 Just down the street Although many sources talk about the banners on Nanking Road, Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” says they had mostly disappeared (p. 492).

  40 Several blocks west Boyden, “Changing Shanghai,” p. 493.

  40 pidgin English Dong, Shanghai, pp. 32–33. Pidgin English “never allowed for sophisticated discourse,” Dong says.

  40 According to the guidebooks All About Shanghai, pp. 120–21; and Rev. C. E
. Darwent, M.A., Shanghai: A Handbook for Travellers and Residents (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1920; reprint, Taipei: Ch'Eng Wen, 1973), p. i.

  40 Kidnappings too Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, p. 86.

  40 Within days of her arrival North China Herald, 29 July 1936 (Lt. Col. Orville M. Johnson jumped on 21 July 1936); North China Herald, 22 July 1936; and China Press, 12 Aug. 1936.

  41 He and his associate “Madame Chiang, 105, Chinese Leader's Widow, Dies,” New York Times, 24 Oct. 2003.

  41 When Chiang Kai-shek's Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990, reprint 1999), pp. 333–34; and Dong, Shanghai, p. 182.

  41 And by 1930 Dong, Shanghai, p. 45.

  41 One particularly twisted Tuchman, Stilwell, pp. 107–8.

  41 and he once sodomized Dong, Shanghai, p. 125.

  41 She wanted to keep fit Harkness to Perkins, 27 Aug. 1936.

  41 “I think I am” Harkness to Perkins and Anne Pierce, 25 July 1936.

  42 “jealous as hell” Harkness to Perkins, 19 Sept. 1936.

  42 Sometimes tucked away China Press, 9 Oct. 1935.

  43 He was all too eager Floyd Tangier Smith to Field Museum, 26 July 1936, Field Museum archives.

  43 “He has been here” Harkness to Perkins, 25 July 1936.

  43 Smith was a practiced storyteller “Zoologist Tells of Perils in Remote Sections of China: Returns After Consorting with Half-Civilized Tribes and Bandit Hordes for Two Years While Collecting Specimens” ran one headline above an Associated Press story in 1932.

  43 “It was a long job” Floyd Tangier Smith, “Collecting a Zoo in China: The Search for the Giant Panda,” Home and Empire, Nov. 1937, Smith Papers.

  44 “little pile of coppers” Harkness, Lady and the Panda, p. 28.

  44 “I divide the whites” Harkness to Perkins, 30 Sept. 1936.

  44 The notion of This is revealed in all his correspondence about her after her success.

  44 “Those who think that the animals” Smith, “Collecting a Zoo in China,” p. 6.

  44 “I don't know how you” Ruth Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

  45 Even now Russell to Reynolds, 1 Apr. 1965.