The Sand Pebbles

by Richard McKenna

  Faith made San Pablo invincible in Hunan. Faith kept the tigers believing that they were house cats. Nothing must shake that faith.

  But someone had to look out the eyes.

  He turned abruptly and pulled open a drawer of his desk and took out a pair of Chinese baby shoes. He set them on the green baize. They were blue, with crude U.S. flags embroidered in white and red on each toe. They spoke something wordless of what that symbol could mean in the Chinese mind.

  In Hunan many Chinese displayed imperfect U.S. flags to protect their property from warlords and bandits. In the strange Chinese mind they were protection against more than just human predators. They drew good luck, and the smile of heaven. They warded off Chinese devils. A missionary had given Lt. Collins the baby shoes, as a heathen curiosity. One of his woman converts had made them for her child, substituting the foreign symbol for the traditional tiger head. The missionary had called it superstition and taken them from her. But he displayed that same flag prominently above all his mission property.

  The ignorant mother was wiser than the missionary, Lt. Collins thought. And the speechless child was wisest of them all. Only the simplest minds could touch the highest truths. You look at it and it squiggles away. You cannot know it, you can only feel it. As mother and child felt it … nothing special … just a feeling that everything is all right. All … all … all … all right …

  Footsteps on deck stopped before his door. Hastily, Lt. Collins put the shoes back into his desk. But the footsteps went on, into the bridge.

  Holman almost ran down to the engine room. It was his sanctuary. Courage and honor be damned, he thought. Whichever way you turned it, the military crap was still being a monkey-on-a-stick. He looked at the engine and it soothed him. You know how to deal with the monkeys, don’t you, Engine, he thought. Well, he was going to lose the best ship for living aboard that he had ever had. The faster he trained Po-han, the faster he would be putting the skids under himself. Well, he would teach Po-han all he knew, everything, and when they shanghaied Jake Holman he would leave behind him a man just like himself. They would not get rid of Jake Holman as easily as they figured.

  He spotted Po-han among the coolies and called him over to the workbench. Po-han said he had been ashore. He had uncles and many cousins in Paoshan. Holman told him about the new repair gang. Po-han was doubtful until he understood that Holman would work with them, and then his whole face beamed delight. They decided on Pai, Chiu-pa and Lung for the rest of the gang. Holman felt the tension of the interview with Lt. Collins leaving him. No more topside watches, he thought happily. No more drills. He felt good and easy with Po-han, better than with anybody else aboard. For a while at least, it was going to be all right. He squeezed Po-han’s shoulder and shook him gently.

  “Maskee? Can do, Po-han?”

  “You, me, can do, Jehk,” Po-han grinned back.

  11

  It was very good to be with the machinery again. It was like coming home from the wars. Holman’s hands became hard and grimed and his dungarees oil-stained and his steaming shoes oil-soaked and molded very comfortably to his feet. He got along well with his repair gang and began learning a kind of pidgin Chinese in order to talk and joke with them. They kidded each other just like sailors, but you had to understand how a turtle was a particularly bastardly kind of bastard in order to appreciate their insults. They all had their individual laughs and grins and gestures and so much play and expression in their faces that Holman wondered why he had ever thought that Chinese faces were blank. He would not let them call him Mastah or Sheensheng, so they called him Ho-mang and Po-han called him Jehk. None of them would make their jokes at Holman, and he often wished they would.

  Ping-wen took over smoothly, for cleaning and boiler work. He and Holman were respectful to each other, and the cleaning coolies still had blank faces. The ship was underway most of the days and the repair work had to be done in the evenings. Wilsey and Burgoyne often came down to drink coffee and watch the work. Burgoyne was proud of Po-han, who was still oiler on the steaming watch. Perna and Stawski would come down to drink coffee, but they did not have any interest in the repair work.

  The topside sailors did not like it, for Holman to be off drills and deck watches. They did not say much, but Bronson and Crosley began calling him Ho-mang, and they meant it as a dig. Holman just grinned at them. Ho-mang was as good a name as any other.

  He was not really training anyone, except Po-han. Pai and Chiu-pa and Lung were old hands, and every operation on the pumps was something they had done before and they were satisfied with their understanding of it. They were careful, steady workers and they had a grave respect for their tools and the machinery, such as few sailors had, and Holman respected them for it. It did not matter that they thought of pump parts in terms of kidneys and livers and such. When they spotted and scraped in a steam pilot valve, the pump stopped stalling; it was all right if Chiu-pa thought he had smoothed the wrinkles in the pump’s worried brain. But Po-han could see beyond it to a steam-bound auxiliary piston, which he acted out by hissing and pressing his palms together, and he knew a pump stalled because it couldn’t help it and not because it was too worried to keep its mind on the job. If spotting did not cure it, he could go on to renew the rings or rebush the gear. Whenever Po-han learned something new he was so delighted that it made Holman glad too.

  The Sand Pebbles thought they knew all about the coolies and they did not know anything, Holman decided, after a while. Men like Pai and Chiu-pa were not bilge coolies at all; they were skilled workmen, even if they had screwy notions of what they did. But the Sand Pebbles called even Lop Eye Shing a coolie. For them, Ping-wen had one face for all the bilge coolies and Pappy Tung one face for all the deck coolies. They goosed Clip Clip and kidded with Wong and Oh Joy and they would stop by the galley to tell Big Chew the chow was very good, but they did not know even those house coolies. Their jokes, all they said and did, it was the same over and over, like parrot talk. It was old custom to goose Clip Clip. It was old custom for Clip Clip to jump and squeal and chatter, and for all hands to laugh.

  For the Sand Pebbles, the coolies were collectively a kind of machine that kept the San Pablo clean and shipshape. The house coolies, which included Sew Sew and Press Press, and Captain Doo, who cleaned the head and washroom, were a part of the machine that kept the living quarters clean and neat, bunks made up, shoes shined, lockers always full of good, clean clothing, and the best chow in China on the mess tables three times a day. It was just old custom. It was also by far the best life Jake Holman had ever had, and when the thought came that he was going to have to leave it he would frown and shake his head and think about something else.

  He was amazed at the extent of squeeze. They did not overlook anything, not even pencils from the ship’s office, salt from the galley, and aspirin and pink lady from the sick bay. Every quarter the San Pablo had a shipment of stores sent to her by commercial steamer from the navy godown in Hankow, and half of it was for squeeze. Farren always ordered four dozen paint brushes. Holman learned he had to order enough brass and steel stock, sheet lead and copper, zinc plates and spelter and other metals, to supply a ship four times the size of the San Pablo. The coolies took the whole of the welfare fund, profits from the ship’s store and beer sales and biologicals. The Sand Pebbles called it the “coolie fund.” Whenever a sailor’s shoes or clothing became a bit worn they would be squeezed and replaced by new ones and the cost would be in the mess bill which Lop Eye Shing collected on paydays. It was almost a kind of taxation, Holman thought. Like all sailors, the Sand Pebbles would curse and cuff and kick coolies around on the beach, but they did not kick the ship coolies. If one of them forgot and did, his next mess bill would be several dollars more than usual. He would know why, and no one would be sorry for him.

  The coolies lived their life very much apart. They came and went across the rail aft, to keep from cluttering up the quarterdeck and also to let the squeeze go ashore unofficially. Lt. Coll
ins never inspected their quarters below the main deck. None of the Sand Pebbles ever went down there. After the crew’s payday Lop Eye Shing would pay off the coolies and they would gamble all night, the sound of their quarreling coming up through the deck, and often enough the heavy, sweet smell of opium came up through the hatches. They would get drunk and scream and fight down there and be around the ship next day with black eyes and scratched faces, but no one ever took official notice of it.

  Holman asked questions and collected all the scuttlebutt he could about the coolies. There was not much. The Sand Pebbles believed that Lop Eye Shing kept exactly half the squeeze money for himself. He was supposed to have a big house and half a dozen pretty wives in Changsha and to be the social equal of the warlord. The Sand Pebbles were not interested in how things on the San Pablo had come about. It had always been that way and it was old custom and that was enough. Po-han also seemed unwilling to talk. He did say that there was a feud between Big Chew and Shing and that Big Chew would like to ease Shing off the ship and be number one himself. Big Chew had some of the other house coolies on his side, and also the four Fangs. They had been warlord soldiers and were supposed to be very tough. But Big Chew was afraid of Shing’s gangster connections in Changsha. Po-han said frankly that he was afraid both of Shing and Big Chew, and he did not want to get mixed up in anything, even by talking.

  Lt. Collins had said that the crew, everybody aboard, had been designed for their special job. The thought nagged at Holman. No one could tell him how. Finally, in an argument with Chiu-pa, he found one clue.

  They were going to pack the fire and bilge pump and Chiu-pa wanted to soak the square, laminated Tuck’s packing in water overnight and then step-cut it with a close clearance. Holman wanted to butt-cut the dry packing with a half-inch clearance to allow for swelling and put it in right away. Chiu-pa explained that if the belly snakes were not drowned first, they would bind the pump and break the follower plate. Holman said that water did not drown the belly snakes, it only made them grow, and all you had to do was to leave them enough room to grow in. Chiu-pa became excited and waved a turn of the old, step-cut packing in Holman’s face.

  “Olo custom! Olo custom!” he said.

  “I makee new custom,” Holman said.

  Po-han was grinning. Pai and Lung were not.

  “Befoh time P’tocki doee olo fashion, plopah fashion!” Chiu-pa insisted.

  Holman pinned him on that. Yes, many a time Pitocki had packed that pump with his own hands, Chiu-pa said, and always he soaked and step-cut the packing. But when Holman tried to find out how and when pump-packing had become coolie work, Chiu-pa turned vague. Holman had Po-han put the packing in dry and butt-cut. For days afterward Chiu-pa watched the pump suspiciously, waiting for it to groan with a bellyache and then bind and break something.

  The clue was that once Pitocki had packed pumps, and later it was coolie work that no white man could do without losing face. Holman built the rest up in his mind, from what he had seen happen on Fleet ships when they stayed a month or two in a Chinese port.

  First the sampans would cluster around the slop chute and the Chinese in them would scream at each other and fight with dip nets for the garbage. So the cooks would give one sampan the garbage contract and people from that sampan would come aboard to collect it. Very quickly, that extended to scraping plates at the mess tables and then to washing them, and in a week or two every sailor-messcook would have his Chinese helper who did all the work. In the galley they would peel potatoes, and the cooks would be careful not to notice how they peeled them much too thickly and also dumped all the big, outside leaves of the cabbage into the garbage, which was their only pay. They would also shine the range and clean pans and coppers and they would take to sleeping on gunny sacks in the galley passageway so that they could be on hand early in the morning.

  At first one or two would squat in a corner of the crew’s washroom and scrub clothes for a few clackers a bucketful. The sailors would be a bit ashamed to squat there too, scrubbing their own clothes and feeling cheap because they were only saving a clacker. So very soon the Chinese scrubbed all the clothes and they would set up an ironing board with a big charcoal iron in some corner and at night one or two would sleep on mats under the ironing board.

  Certain big, dirty jobs, such as chipping and painting sides and peak tanks for the deckforce or cleaning bilges and boilers for the engineers, would be saved until the ship came to China. Labor contractors, paid by the welfare fund, would bring hundreds of coolies aboard and do the jobs in a few days. A few deck and bilge coolies, the quick and handy ones, would stay on to do routine dirty work. They would be paid with brass shavings from the lathe, dirty wiping rags, old clothes, oily kerosene, all the stuff that would be thrown away in any other port but had value in China.

  Within a month they would be all over the ship, humble, crouching in corners, ready to do any dirty, irksome thing that sailors did not like to do, and do it cheerfully and well. They were like water seeking its level, patient, not pressing, always ready when the chance came, making life smoother and easier for everybody with their Chinese magic, and all they wanted in return was trash and leavings and a few clackers now and then. What kept it from going too far on Fleet ships was that in time they always went to Manila, which was American flag country, and all Chinese had to get off.

  But the river gunboats never left China and the San Pablo hardly ever left Hunan. Lop Eye Shing had come aboard twenty-five years ago as a garbage coolie and he was still aboard. And now, if scuttlebutt had it right, he made a lot more money every month than even Lt. Collins made.

  Holman could see how it would all happen. They would build the wooden superstructure to give the crew healthier living quarters in the tropical summers. A river boat did not have to be seaworthy. Then there would be no reason why the Chinese should not take the old quarters. They would reduce the crew a man or two at a time, because the Chinese were doing all the hard work, and it would also make more living space for the others. When Pitocki packed the water end of a pump, at first the coolie would only hand him tools and wipe up after the job. Then the coolie would bolt and unbolt, then make the gasket, learning the job step by step, monkey-see monkey-do. It was dirty and uncomfortable under a pump, with water dripping in your face, and sooner or later old Pitocki would let the coolie do the whole job. Then it would be coolie work, and Pitocki would lose face if he packed a pump himself. He would be breaking a coolie’s rice bowl.

  So they had learned it monkey-see monkey-do in stolen bits from lazy machinist’s mates until they could monkey-do it all, after their fashion, even such highly skilled jobs as refitting bearings. Sailors came and went and the bilge coolies stayed on and they made all the work coolie work. All the sailors had left was control of the throttle and feed checks underway and making out and signing the log sheets.

  Well, nobody designed that, Holman thought. It just grew. Or did the Chinese know what they were doing? Had Lop Eye Shing designed it? It was hard to say.

  It was the same topside. There, all the sailors had left was the guns. No Chinese could touch a weapon. Restorff was the only petty officer who still had the whole of his work to himself. Almost every day he would have a greasy hammock laid out somewhere on deck, cleaning and oiling guns, and all of the seamen helped him. Restorff had been aboard almost ten years, longer than any other Sand Pebble, and from him Holman got the second clue.

  “When I first come aboard here, back before the war, the old Sand Pebble was the easy-go-sloppiest ship on the river,” Restorff said one time.

  “What changed her?” Holman asked.

  “Lieutenant Von Bredow,” Restorff said.

  There were a lot of officers with German names on the China Station then, Restorff went on. The scuttlebutt was that the navy wanted to get them out of the way, in case they might be disloyal in a war against Germany. They had all been pretty touchy about it. Lt. Von Bredow came to the San Pablo, and maybe he was taking his resentment
out on the sailors or maybe he was just trying to demonstrate his loyalty, but he began turning it into a battleship with uniform of the day and drills and quarterdeck ritual and inspections and all manner of military ceremony. He was a tall, hard, sharp man who never smiled, Restorff said.

  “She was a madhouse for quite a while,” Restorff reminisced, smiling ruefully. “Lots of the guys couldn’t stand it, and they got swaps or transfers.”

  That was probably when Pitocki gave over the pump packing to Chien, Holman thought. And bearing fitting and everything else, because the topside military stuff had begun taking all of his time.

  “Now it seems like it’s always been that way,” Restorff said. “The guys like it that way. And it makes face with the slopeheads.”

  Well, it was a design, all right, Holman thought, but it was hard to say who designed it. It was a design, and there was no place in it for Jake Holman, and so they were going to get rid of him. Whenever that thought crept up on him, he would clamp his teeth and grimace.

  He still enjoyed the steaming watches with Burgoyne and Po-han, but the useless entries in the log began to bother him. The San Pablo used standard navy log sheets and every hour the throttleman had to report to the bridge the temperature of the river water and the average revolutions of the engine. The temperature would tell a deep-sea ship whether it was in or out of some current like the Gulf Stream and warn of icebergs nearby. They used the average RPM for navigation. But there were no warm currents or icebergs in Tungting Lake and the Chinese pilot could always tell exactly where he was by looking ashore, and it did not make sense to log those readings. When Holman griped about it to Burgoyne, the lean watertender only grinned and shrugged.

  “Hellfire, they got a column in the log for it. Ain’t that a reason?”