The Sand Pebbles

by Richard McKenna

  “It will, if hoping helps. I sure been hoping.”

  He went lightly down to the main deck. So you could be a missionary without fiddling around with souls. You could be a teacher. A teacher too. How about that?

  The waist party stood by on the quarterdeck, beside the open arms locker. Lynch paced nervously and slapped his pistol and they talked in very low voices. The missionaries on the boat deck were going to pray straight through and they were making all the noise on the ship. The men up there took turns leading the praying and now and then they all stopped for a hymn. The high, cottony clouds were heaping and piling behind the city. The wall and bund were solid with people. Soldiers and monks were building a pyre on the sands.

  “They could go hermentile any second. This could get pretty nasty,” Lynch kept saying.

  Burgoyne was nervous too. He had an extra large lipful of snuff and he kept crossing the quarterdeck to lean out and spit and look aft.

  “If there is a God, and He knows how to make it rain, I don’t rightly see how He can hold out,” Burgoyne said.

  “Hah!” Harris said.

  “Harris don’t believe in God,” Wilsey said, winking.

  “I believe in admirals,” Harris said.

  “Harris is going to hell.”

  “I’ll worry about that when I get there.”

  “Harris is a bad influence on us kids,” Wilsey said. “No wonder we’re so sinful that God won’t let it rain.”

  Stawski snickered. Harris bristled.

  “You got something, Wilsey, you say it to me, not just about me!” he demanded. “I’m here, too.”

  Wilsey put his lips to Harris’s ear. “Prong you, Harris,” he whispered.

  “Prong you and all your relations clear back to Judas!”

  “Pipe down!” Lynch snapped. “Cut out that kind of talk!”

  “You believe in God, Chief?” Wilsey asked.

  “Times like this I do,” Lynch said. “No use guys pushing their luck, times like this.”

  The missionaries started on “Rock of Ages.” The flurry of talk on the quarterdeck died down. The great crowd of Chinese ashore was hushing, also.

  At three o’clock they brought the old man out of the city. They were having a hard time getting him through the crowd on the bund. Holman could see the sedan chair, high and tossing like a ship. Bordelles came.

  “Stand to your guns,” he said. “Put steam on the hose.”

  From their positions along the bulwark they watched the sedan chair working down to the sands. The great crowd was absolutely quiet. The whole world, except for the missionaries on the boat deck, seemed to be holding its breath. It was a very tremendous feeling and Holman’s stomach muscles ached with tension.

  “Jake, I’m scared,” Burgoyne whispered.

  “Who’s scared of a million slopeheads, on the wrong side of eight machine guns?” Harris asked. His craggy face was bitter with contempt.

  “That ain’t what I’m scared of, Harris.”

  “Pipe down!” Lynch whispered harshly behind them. “I mean it, God damn you guys! Next one goes on report!”

  The bearers set the sedan chair on the pyre. The old holy man was moving inside it. He raised a hand. He was probably saying something. A priest brought a burning stick from the small fire and pushed it into the pyre. A thread of smoke went up. A vast, low murmur rose from the crowd. It was like the whole air speaking.

  The missionaries started on “Lead, Kindly Light.”

  The smoke went up thinly, with little red flames at the base, and the blue column of smoke wavered and broke at the top. The missionaries choked off and the world was absolutely still. The daylight was going dim and queer. Holman saw gooseflesh on his arms. The crowd seemed to growl deeply in thousands of throats, and Holman shivered in the sudden dusking chill along the deck.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Stawski whispered.

  Holman tore his eyes away from the pyre. Vast, blackening clouds were boiling over the city and pale lightning played jaggedly through them. The nearing roll of thunder blended with the crowd growl, seemed to rise out of it, grew irresistibly to a great world-roaring. Wind came in pats and slaps and gusts. The light went still more dim and queer. The air had a sharp, wet smell that tingled in the nose. Then rain in splats and patters and a gusty, threshing deluge that drove under and up and across and filled the air with flying water.

  Holman could not see anything on the sands. The thunder was a solid roar. The waist party pulled inboard, wet to the skin, up to their ankles in water that the scuppers could not carry away fast enough. The river was a mass of whitecaps stippled and flattened with rain splash, a ghostly froth of air and water. The ship rocked and creaked. Farren and Haythorn came down to double up the moorings again. Farren grinned through his dripping red beard as he crossed the quarterdeck and Holman grinned back at him. Things fell into place.

  It was only a thunderstorm, but it was a regular cloudbuster. It was nearly an hour in passing over and it left a fine rainbow behind. The fires were out on the sands and the crowd dispersed. They began celebrating inside the city with firecrackers, and it sounded like the Battle of the Marne. Holman did not see Miss Eckert before the missionaries went ashore. Word went around the ship that the missionaries were praising God for having answered their prayers.

  The Sand Pebbles snorted over that at supper. They wrangled about it, and a general opinion took shape. It was just a thunderstorm that would have come anyway. The priests in the city were smart and they had smelled it and rushed the old holy man down there in time to claim the credit. Holman stayed out of the argument. He thought the old holy man had won an honest battle, and he was happy about it.

  A few days later the regular soaking summer rains began. The city was quiet and General Pan was back in control. The rain more than made up for lost time. The land greened lushly almost overnight and it began to be moldy and miserable in Paoshan. The Sand Pebbles wished they were back on the lake again, where there was often a breeze. They were very pleased when the supercargo of an oil company junk came aboard with a breathless tale of piracy on the lake.

  23

  The junk had been bound for Paoshan loaded with tinned kerosene. It was under charter to the oil company and so permitted to fly the U.S. flag, and that made the piracy a legal outrage. The San Pablo got up steam at once.

  “We captured a mess of pirates down there in 1920,” Restorff said.

  “Ten of ’em. It was September and the water was so low they didn’t think we could steam this end of the lake,” Harris said. “We fooled ’em.”

  “What did you do with ’em?” Holman asked.

  “Brought ’em to Paoshan. The warlord had their heads off inside of a half hour, right down there on the sand.”

  “You can sure-God think of some nice, juicy things to talk about at chow, Harris,” Burgoyne said.

  “Too bad about you delicate bastards,” Harris jeered. “Let me tell you about a slicing I saw once, up at Wanhsien.”

  “Permission not granted,” Wilsey said. “Slice you, Harris.”

  “Slice you too, and all your bloody ancestors!” Harris said.

  They found the pirated junk late on the second day, dismasted and partly burnt and derelict in the lee of a rocky islet, in the embayment of a vast reed marsh. Bordelles and a party boarded it. The kerosene was gone. The bodies of the crew were there, bound and mutilated. The flag was there, torn in two and befouled with blood and filth. They brought the flag back with them and Crosley took it below and burned it decently in one of the boiler furnaces.

  The pirates were probably watching from the reeds, but there was no hope of catching them. Lt. Collins decided to sink the derelict with gunfire, as a moral show of force. The three-pounder barked repeatedly and Lt. Collins closed the range until they could see the splinters fly, but the junk would not sink. Its timbers had inherent flotation. It was very frustrating and in the end they had to board again, drench the splintered timbers with their own ke
rosene, and try to complete the burning. The gunfire had made quite a mess of the bodies.

  “I told Franks you can’t sink a Chinese junk that’s empty,” Restorff grumbled.

  The San Pablo sailed away just at sunset with the junk wreckage flaming redly against the reeds. The Sand Pebbles were disgusted. But a thrill ran through the ship when they learned Lt. Collins’ plan. As soon as it was full dark the San Pablo crept back again, with not a light showing, and lay to under cover of the rocky islet to avoid the noise of anchoring. Before daylight the full landing force would go in to search the reed marsh and possibly to catch the pirates off guard.

  Each section went in one of the ship’s two sampans. They hoisted the motors inboard and poled with bamboos, careful not to splash or talk or clink weapons. Franks went south half a mile, but Bordelles went right in past the smoldering wreckage, which smelled very foul. Once inside the reeds it was absolutely dark and they settled down to wait for daylight. They cursed in whispers and slapped mosquitoes. With dawn, a thin, misty rain began. They ate some of their sandwiches and started their search.

  The reeds were like very tall corn, with narrow green leaves and reddish-green stalks. The air was hot and dead and green-rotten-smelling and there was long green grass under the water. Farren crouched in the bow with the machine gun. Holman and Vincent poled. It was hard work and they had to keep backing out of blind reaches. Gnats joined the mosquitoes whining about their heads. They kept getting fouled in beds of the broad-leaved rushes that the Chinese wove into mats. They saw many long white snakes in the water.

  “Them are good eating snakes,” Farren whispered once. “We ought to catch some, for Big Chew.”

  “Pipe down!” Bordelles whispered behind him. “It’s pirates we want to catch.”

  They could not help making noise. Holman did not think they were going to catch any pirates. He was soaked with rain drip from outside and sweat from inside and he poled doggedly in the dim, greenish light. After four hours of it, he was sick of the whole business. The others were still excited and alert.

  Then they stumbled into a thinning in the reeds and a slightly higher hummock with several hundred square feet of almost dry ground. Bordelles signaled Halt! and they all seized weapons. There were two small mat sheds on the hummock and several small sampans drawn up and the coarse grass was all trampled. Farren readied his machine gun.

  “One of them walls is moving,” Crosley whispered. It did seem to be shaking. “They’re poking rifle barrels through, Mr. Bordelles!” Crosley whispered urgently.

  Bordelles made up his mind. “Rake ’em, Farren!” he said aloud. “Pole on in, Holman!”

  Farren chopped back and forth through the two huts. Holman drove the boat in powerfully and they all splashed ashore yelling, weapons ready, Red Dog leading the pack. Holman brought up the rear. He was so excited that he came ashore with his bamboo pole instead of his rifle.

  They did not notice that fumble, in their disappointment. No one was in the huts. There were five tins of kerosene in one of the huts. Four of them were punctured by bullets.

  “Well, I guess we give the show away for nothing,” Crosley said.

  “Maybe not,” Bordelles said. “Tear down one of the huts and make a smudge fire, to guide Franks here.”

  Franks would be coming to the sound of the guns, of course. The smudge helped with the gnats and mosquitoes, but the smoke did not rise well in the misty air. It spread out and hurt their eyes and made them cough. Bordelles kept wiping his face with a dirty handkerchief. His face was red and lumpy with bug bites. While they waited, he told about his plan.

  The hummock was obviously a staging point for moving the kerosene inland in the small sampans. Very likely the pirates had not gotten it all safely away yet. Somewhere further in there would be a secret channel that led to the pirates’ shore base. When Franks came they would split into four search groups, each in one of the small captured sampans. Whoever found the channel would signal with shots and flares and they would rejoin and all go in and smoke out the pirates. They would probably not catch any pirates, but they might recover a good part of the pirated kerosene.

  “Mr. Bordelles, you’re really smart!” Crosley said.

  When Franks came he approved the plan and they worked it out in detail. Perna caught the job of staying behind as beach guard, and he was very unhappy about it. They all refilled their canteens from the waterbreakers. It was only eleven o’clock, but they ate the rest of their sandwiches and they were ready to go.

  “Good-bye, Perna! Keep the home fires burning, Perna!” they all jeered at Perna, as their small sampans snaked easily away into the reeds. Almost at once they lost sound and sight of each other.

  Holman was in Bordelles’ boat, with Crosley and Tullio. He would rather have been with Farren and Red Dog. He poled again, and Crosley watched in the bow with his automatic rifle. Bordelles stood up and pushed reeds aside and signaled the way to Holman. The little sampan slid along easily. After a while they came into what seemed a twisting channel. They went about a hundred yards along it and Bordelles halted.

  “I wonder if we should call in the others,” he said. “What do you think, Holman?”

  “I think yes,” Holman said. He wanted them all there, with both machine guns.

  “Let’s go just a bit further,” Bordelles said.

  Around the next turn, the channel pinched out. In the next hour they found two more blind reaches like that. When they found the true channel they went more than a mile along it before they were ready to believe it. But it was unmistakably a channel, with reeds chopped out and sedge dug away, a long, winding, green-shadowy tunnel. Holman stopped poling and Bordelles looked at him.

  “Ain’t it about time to call in the other sampans?” Holman asked.

  “We’re very close in now. We might give up the chance of a surprise,” Bordelles said.

  “This rain would’ve muffled them shots we made,” Crosley said. “Let’s sneak on in and surprise ’em. We can take ’em, Mr. Bordelles.”

  “We’ll scout on in,” Bordelles decided. “No more talking.”

  Holman poled, his eyes on the water, until he was surprised to see tree tops to port. Then there were trees above the reeds to starboard also, and a clear current that waved and rippled the water grass, and the reeds were thinning out. They were going up a creek. Bordelles, his pistol ready, stared keenly ahead. He kept waving Holman on. Then he snapped his hand around with the fingers spread, and that meant stop! Holman stopped. They drifted silently back with the current for a hundred feet and Bordelles had them secure the sampan to the bushes on the port margin.

  “I saw the stern of a boat,” he whispered. “A big one. Who wants to scout the place?”

  “Let me, sir,” Tullio said.

  He eased ashore and worked carefully along the bank, not making much noise. He was gone about twenty minutes and came back excited and eager.

  “There’s a stone jetty and a big wupan, nobody in it, and it’s got kerosene in the bilges,” he said. “There’s a farm compound up the bank. The gate’s closed. I didn’t see anybody up there, no smoke or anything.”

  “Very well done, Tullio!” Bordelles said. “We’ll have a look inside that compound, I think. You lead the way.”

  Tullio flashed his white teeth in a smile and slipped over the side again. They followed him through knee-deep, sludgy water to a dirt bank covered with moss and ferns. They went through willows and past real trees with dark, waxy-green leaves. It had almost stopped raining and watery sunlight hit the wupan. An iridescent oil scum floated on the water in the bilge. Bordelles nodded vigorously.

  “We will indeed have ourselves a look inside that compound,” he whispered. “You walk directly up to the gate, Holman. We’ll cover you. If firing starts, sprint for the wall, and take cover at its base.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Holman said.

  Crosley and Tullio went off to either side. Holman walked up the path. The whitewashed wall was about
eight feet high, with a closed wooden gate in the center, and gray tiled roofs showing above it. He felt numb. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got there. Bordelles yelled and there was red-shot smoke and a slap on Holman’s left jaw and his body was crawling on hands and knees into the shrubbery. Black smoke rose above the wall. Crosley’s BAR chattered and the bullets made red splotches on the wall. “Hold high, Crosley!” Bordelles yelled. He ran past Holman, pistol in hand, and crouched at the base of the wall.

  Holman had blood in his mouth and his teeth wouldn’t line up. He was afraid to clamp them together. He wished Farren and Red Dog were there. Crosley was still firing short bursts. Bordelles stood up flat against the wall and tossed something over to right and to left. There was a double explosion inside. Bordelles lunged with his shoulder at the gate. That was something he could do, Holman thought. He picked up his rifle and ran to join Bordelles, and his solid weight crashed the gate open.

  “Give me your grenades!” Bordelles said. “Cover me!”

  He ran to the biggest house, at the left. A man was down, crawling feebly in front of it. Bordelles tossed a grenade through an open window and ran around to the side and there were more explosions back there. Crosley shot the creeping man in the head. He and Tullio ran back to join Bordelles. An old woman was spreading a quilt over a heap of something to the right of the courtyard. She jerked and worked frantically.

  Bordelles and Tullio came back through the big house. They walked springily, in a slashing, dashing way. Holman was standing there.

  “They all got away out the back gate,” Bordelles said. “Say! You’re hit!”

  Holman tried to say it was nothing. He could not talk well. Tullio tore open a first-aid pack. Rifle shots sounded in back and Bordelles snapped, “Spread out!” and they did. It was only Crosley. He came out grinning all over his frog face.

  “I was just killing them pigs back there,” he said. He darted his eyes around the courtyard. “What about that old woman?”

  “For God’s sake, Crosley! Don’t kill her.” Bordelles laughed. “Let her go. She can’t hurt anything.”