The Sand Pebbles

by Richard McKenna

  “Surely the ships had provocation?” Shirley said.

  “Of course they did. The troops at Nanking are Hunanese, Pan’s regiment among them,” Gillespie said. “Cho-jen is inclined to think the provocation was deliberate.”

  Gillespie wanted to put off discussing what it meant to them personally, Shirley could see. Through Cho-jen he had become intensely interested in the revolution, particularly its development in the Chien Valley. He explained the Nanking episode in terms of the rear-area movement to capture the revolution for Bolshevism. That had gone a long way in Hunan; only Cho-jen and his China Light group were keeping the Bolshevik Chung faction from control of the Chien Valley. The provincial worker-peasant council in Changsha had decreed the treaties canceled in Hunan.

  “Cho-jen has heard that they are trying to provoke trouble with the gunboats at Changsha,” Gillespie said grimly. “The trouble at Nanking is no doubt more of the same.”

  The reason for it was the recurrent rumor that Chiang Kai-shek was about to lead the conservative wing of the Kuomintang in a counterrevolution against the entire worker-peasant movement, Gillespie went on. To do so successfully, he would have to bow to the unequal treaties in order to get treaty power support, and the revolution would be lost. But if the radical wing could force a war with one or more of the treaty powers first, they would prevent that. They would make the revolution Bolshevik instead, because then all the support would have to come from Russia.

  “We have it right here in miniature,” Gillespie said. “The Chung faction is already making this a very severe test for Cho-jen.”

  He had come to their part in it. As he spoke, he kept folding and unfolding the flimsy news sheet and smoothing it on his knee. Mr. Craddock listened placidly. Chung street orators in Paoshan were clamoring for execution of Craddock’s death sentence. They were calling Cho-jen a running dog. By now Cho-jen had a stay of execution from the highest Kuomintang levels in Hankow. But the Chungs were saying that the Kuomintang itself would be a pack of running dogs if it did not take up the challenge of Nanking. They had called up the Chung-dominated part of the local militia and they were making threats of marching on China Light.

  “Cho-jen is starting back to Paoshan within the hour, to forestall that by counter-intrigue,” Gillespie said. “He knows this is the first major crisis of his career.”

  Gillespie paused. He and Shirley looked at Mr. Craddock. The old man looked sorrowful but unafraid.

  “You two must do as your own hearts bid you,” he said.

  “It may be war between America and the Kuomintang,” Gillespie said. He had almost worn the news sheet out by repeated foldings. “I wondered … have you thought …”

  “Yes. Months ago,” Mr. Craddock said gravely. “I believe it is God’s will that China be freed of the unequal treaties. If my country makes war on China to reimpose the treaties, that will not change my belief. I no longer hold my God and my country to be identical.”

  A hush fell. It did not really sound so monstrous, Shirley thought.

  “I am an old man and my life is here,” Mr. Craddock resumed. “Yet that decision was not easy for me. I do not wish you two young people to be influenced by it.”

  “I made it too. I am bound.” Gillespie stood up. “Only now—” he broke off and paced the length of the small room. “Why should it seem so different, just because the killing has begun?” he asked in anguish

  “Because it is not just words any more.”

  “Mr. Craddock, it is not that I fear for my life! I have the utmost faith in Cho-jen. I know we are all safe here.”

  Shirley wanted to comfort him. “It is because you are a man, Walter, and this is war and weapons,” she said. She stood up, suddenly angry. “Why should anyone feel forced to choose, in that way? Why can’t we just be citizens of the human race?”

  “Legally, no such human category is permissible,” Gillespie said.

  “But it exists. The war brought it into existence,” Mr. Craddock said. “I mean the people with League of Nations passports. The stateless persons.”

  “The White Russians?” Shirley’s hand went to her lips.

  “Yes. Anyone eligible for a Nansen passport.”

  Gillespie stopped his pacing. “Does any nation grant the valid existence of a Nansen passport?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure the U.S. does not. We hold the White Russians in China to be Chinese.”

  “All I wish is to live out my days peaceably in China,” Mr. Craddock said mildly.

  Gillespie snapped his fingers. “Let’s talk about that!” he said.

  They talked quite a while. They decided to declare themselves stateless persons, in the event of war and for the duration of it. Gillespie said he would draft their statement and ask Mr. Lin to draft one in correct Chinese. They would mail a copy to the consul in Changsha and deposit another with the officials in Paoshan. The decision cleared away all their anxiety.

  “Insofar as the state demands an absolute and unquestioning loyalty, those who put God ahead of country are all in a sense stateless persons,” Mr. Craddock said.

  “Those who can still conceive of such a possibility,” Gillespie agreed. “This will be a great help to Cho-jen, too,” he added. “Now the Chungs can’t make our status here such an embarrassment to Cho-jen.”

  “We belong here,” Shirley said. “Now let’s go back out in the sunshine, with the others.”

  They signed their declaration just in time. The next day Tao-min took copies in to Paoshan and in late evening both he and Cho-jen returned with disturbing news. There had been fighting in Changsha. Telegraphic warning had reached Paoshan that the gunboat San Pablo was crossing Tungting Lake. At once the Chungs had tried to link it with the Americans at China Light. The declaration of statelessness had come just in time to counter that. The river boom was being closed and all the militia groups were being called to defend it. Cho-jen had come to muster the China Light militia.

  Shouts and ragged bugling came through the open windows of the faculty office. Shirley watched the militia trying to form up on the street. Nearest the gate were the students, with their skimpy yellow-green uniforms and rifles. Behind them the farmers had only armbands and many were armed only with hand-forged spears, tridents and halberds. The weapons gleamed brightly, bobbing and jostling above the massed heads. On the lawns to either side the women and children and old people were standing. Mr. Craddock was sitting on the veranda of what had once been the Armstrong house.

  “That’s it,” Gillespie said. He rattled the sheet out of his typewriter. “You might as well sign it too, Shirley,” he said.

  Cho-jen waited for it, while they signed. It was an amplification of their statement and a plea for the gunboat to turn back. Cho-jen wrapped all the papers in a piece of oiled silk and put them into the leather pouch at his waist.

  “I will go on hoping that there will be a chance to parley,” he said. “But I am afraid that the Chungs will make sure that there is not.”

  He was quiet, almost somber, his tremendous energy more nearly in leash than Shirley had ever seen it. He had grown, her eyes insisted; he was tall as Gillespie, although slender and unformed with youth. But his face was as formed as Gillespie’s, almost graven, under the pressure of his time.

  “I must go. It is a long march,” he said.

  He shook hands with them and said good-bye. He smiled, and for that moment was a boy again. Then, abruptly, he was gone.

  “Good luck!” Gillespie called after him.

  “Be careful! Oh, Cho-jen, be careful!” Shirley cried.

  She crossed to the window, to hide the tears that had started to her eyes. Gillespie came and stood behind her.

  “You know he can’t be careful. The China Light boys will have to be in the forefront of it, to refute the lies the Chungs have spread.”

  “Because of us.”

  “We can at least be glad now that sailor did not come with us.”

  “If he had, he’d be down there marching with the
m!”

  “Do you mean you feel I should be?” Gillespie asked quietly.

  “No. No, Walter.” She tried to control herself. “Cho-jen and all my boys are enough,” she said.

  She could not stop the tears on her cheeks. And Jake Holman will be on the other side, she thought. Isn’t that enough for the Lord God of Battles?

  “I want to take arms and march with them. I do, Shirley!”

  “You mustn’t. Not even think it,” she said. “I’m just being a foolish, instinctive woman. But don’t you be foolish.”

  He moved up beside her. “It’s a mad game,” he said. “A wicked, hateful game.” His voice was bitter.

  They stood in silence. Jake had used to call it a game, she was remembering. You choose up sides and kill each other, he had said once. As she had often before, she wished again that she could have helped him to escape from it. But it was too late now.

  Cho-jen came in sight, striding along. As he passed, a wave of form and order seemed to pass with him along the chaotic ranks. The gleaming weapons steadied and aligned themselves. The students struck up their marching song.

  We are just ready to fight;

  To fight the warlords with all our might.

  They were pushing open the great wooden gates. Bugles sounded raggedly and the weapons bobbed and tossed once more as the ranks began to move. New tears started to her eyes and she wanted to rest her head on Gillespie’s shoulder, but she would not. From outside the gates she could still hear her students singing.

  Don’t give up, comrades, just fight!

  We’ll overcome them, all right!

  We’ll think we’re too small. We’ll get them all!

  For we’re soldiers of China Light!

  45

  While the light lasted, the San Pablo groped her way westward between green marshy islands from which white flurries of water birds rose screaming like lost souls. All the men came down and took their turns at stoking. When they anchored at sunset and banked fires, they had hardly more than bunker scrapings left to burn. They knew there was a timber raft stranded at Ta An from which they would get wood the next day.

  Half the sky was red with sunset. Farren had gotten the topside swept and washed down. Bone-weary as they were, the men squared away the living spaces as well as they could. Welbeck shared out the last of the soap and shaving cream. They all bathed and shaved and cleaned up. They were quiet and methodical about it.

  It was a cool, crisp evening, sprinkled with stars. The Sand Pebbles were making up all their old feuds. A man would say something friendly and get a friendly response and drift along and repeat it with another man. They did not make apologies. They were all agreeing together without words that nothing had ever happened for which apologies were necessary. It was a matter of grins exchanged, small jokes and friendly slaps and nudges. One by one, they all made peace with Holman that way. He saw Crosley and Red Dog, each still bearing marks of their fight, standing at the rail with their arms across each other’s shoulders.

  They had the armor flaps down and the windows open. Cool lake air and the croaking of frogs blew through the compartment. It smelled clean and fresh when they turned in at taps.

  The strange peacefulness on the ship, the renewed friendliness, Holman thought, were because they believed they were going to fight and probably all be killed. Their belief was so strong that it was hard for him not to share it. He was still hoping that there would be no fight and it would work out somehow that he could break free of the ship and stay at China Light. By the time he went to sleep, it was a pretty slim hope. However it goes, I hope I at least see her one more time, he thought. He went to sleep on that.

  They reached the timber raft about noon, and just in time. They were burning bunker sweepings so fine that half of it went sparking up the stack with the draft. They moored port side to the raft and it rounded away from the bulwark like a low brown hill. Bordelles, with Yen-ta to interpret, went to the cluster of matsheds on top of the raft to bargain. If the raftmen refused to sell, the sailors would just take the wood.

  The raftmen were willing to sell wood. They pulled out the slender pine logs very deftly. The raft was bound with bamboo cables. They were made of long, flexible strips of bamboo braided and then the braids braided to make cables of any size wanted. The raftmen slacked the cables and pulled out logs and slid them down to the fantail of the ship.

  On the fantail the Sand Pebbles sawed them into four-foot billets. They split the big ones into quarters with mauls and wedges. Other men carried the billets forward to the bunkers. Holman swung a maul. The men worked quietly and steadily. The maul rang on wedges and the saws rasped and snored through wood. The fresh, resinous smell of sawdust was all about the fantail.

  Three raft children, a boy and two girls, watched the Sand Pebbles from far back on the raft. The sailors worked stripped to the waist and sawdust powdered their hair and arms and chests, sweating under the warm sun. Sawdust was heaped on deck and slippery under their feet. In hesitant fascination the children came down log by log for a closer look at the hairy, tattooed men.

  Harris dropped his saw. His gray-thatched chest was heaving. “Hard work!” he said, panting. He kicked his foot in the sawdust. “This smells good,” he said. “Like way back home in them hills.”

  He picked up a double handful of the sawdust and sniffed it. He saw the children watching him, wide-eyed. He grinned and held the sawdust out to them. They shrank back and huddled together, ready to flee.

  “Makee chow chow!” Harris told them. He pretended to eat the sawdust, gobbling into his hands. He raised his head and smacked his lips. “Ding hao!” he said.

  They stared doubtfully. Harris puffed his cheeks with air and chewed and raised his hands to his ears. He let sawdust trickle down his arms, seeming to come from his ears. The children stared and moved right down to the rail. They knew Harris was making a show for them.

  “Oh boy! Oh boy!” Harris said. “Number one chow chow!”

  He took out his false teeth and held them with thumb and knuckles and made them chomp. The children were absolutely fascinated. Harris squatted and let the teeth chomp through a pile of sawdust. The teeth clicked and snapped at it. The children climbed down on the fantail to see better. “Ding hao!” Harris said, grinning cavernously at the children. The teeth sidled over and bit Harris on the ankle. The children shrieked.

  “Hey! Stop that!” Harris told the teeth. “Bu hao!”

  The teeth laughed at Harris. The children giggled. They wanted to see the teeth chomp sawdust. Whenever the teeth would try to sneak up on Harris’ ankle, the children would shriek a warning. They wanted to touch the teeth. The teeth made little snaps at them and they pulled their hands away with cries of fearful delight. Harris looked over his shoulder at the other sailors, who were still working.

  “Any of you guys got a piece of that Christmas candy left?” he asked.

  No one had. Harris shook a finger at the teeth and told them to behave themselves. They bowed meekly and indicated that they would. He left the teeth in the sawdust and went forward.

  “Who’s got any of that Christmas pogeybait left in his locker?” Harris was yelling, somewhere forward. “Where’s Duckbutt?”

  The children squatted and pushed the teeth around gingerly. They were a bit afraid of the teeth. They kept looking forward. It was no fun without Harris.

  Harris came back with a saucer of something. It was a paste of sugar and condensed milk and a pinch of cocoa. Harris squatted and made signs that the teeth were not to know. He and the children heaped sawdust on the teeth. Then Harris dipped his finger in the paste and licked it off.

  “Ding hao!” he said, licking and smacking his lips.

  He offered the saucer. The little boy tried it first, very solemnly. Then all four were dipping their fingers and licking them off.

  “What you got there, Harris? Some one-finger poi?” Tullio asked.

  “Shut up, Tullio,” Holman said.

  Harris
and the children worked on the confection until the saucer was clean. Then Harris eased his hand under the pile of sawdust and the teeth burst free again. They went sniffing and casting about, while the children held their breaths, until they found the saucer. They snapped and clashed at the empty saucer and chattered with rage because they had missed out. When Harris laughed and taunted them, they leaped viciously at his ankle. They would not let go until he wrestled them into a handkerchief and stuffed them struggling into his pocket.

  The children shrieked delighted applause. Harris stood up with both hands on the small of his back, working out a crick. Then he lifted each child gently in turn across the bulwark to the raft. They moved off a little way and sat down in a row on a log. They still stared at Harris. He turned back to his shipmates and picked up his saw and flexed it in both hands.

  “I’m an old man. I need to rest,” he told them. “Besides, I was bringing us luck. Kids can give you luck.”

  The ship stayed moored to the raft all night. They had a very good supper. Welbeck had bought fresh vegetables and pork and shrimp from the raft people. The raft cook had come aboard to prepare it. As at Christmas, Bordelles and the chiefs came down to eat with the crew.

  Lt. Collins ate alone in his cabin. He was still being very cold and remote. The Sand Pebbles knew he had not forgiven them.

  They had almost forgotten how wonderfully good Chinese food could be. They made a lingering feast of it. No one spoke of what would happen the next day except that Bordelles, at Bronson’s table, mentioned that the raft headman had agreed to mail any letters left with him when the raft reached Hankow. Lynch sat at Holman’s table. He was shaved and cleaned up. He had sense in his eyes and he could talk and eat all right, but he did not know anyone by name. He made up names for them all. Wilsey was Moonhead. Farren was Redbeard. Harris was Jackfrost. Holman was Flangeface. Lynch made the only reference to the next day at Holman’s table.

  “We’re going to fight tomorrow,” he said. “We’re going to make ’em give us back our real names.”