EVERY man has his price, so they say, and that afternoon of September 6, 1920, the Skipper of the Palos reflected that his was at least ten thousand and one Mexican dollars. Engrossed in a book, he had been sitting on the veranda of the officers’ leased bungalow on the Second Range near Chungking. A slight noise at the end of the veranda made him look up. A well-dressed Chinese stood there. He was obviously not a coolie, and he knew the English language sufficiently well to express himself. He said without preamble: “Captain, you no search ship on way to Ichang, I give you $10,000.”The Skipper flung his book at the Oriental’s head, observed him disappear around the corner of the bungalow, and presently settled back to his reading, feeling quite virtuous. But his pleasure in the book was gone, for the incident persistently obtruded itself. Some thinking was in order.
That year of 1920 China was making one of her spasmodic efforts to shake off the narcotic bonds which had fastened upon her population. The poppy was forbidden as a crop, and the price of opium had risen to prohibitive heights. Szechwan, a trifle smaller than Arizona and New Mexico combined and possessing a population of 55,000,000 people, had in times past been a fruitful source of the drug. But it was now forbidden, and the Opium Combine was in sore straits. From the borders of India, Burmese opium was drifting eastward, drawn into the vacuum created by small supply and insatiable demand. To fetch it into Szechwan from this source merely involved long and difficult journeys. But the hitch came in transporting the drug from Szechwan down into the heart of China to the great cities of the Han and Shanghai.
Szechwan is ringed about with mountains in such fashion that the Yangtze herself offers the only practicable avenue of communication between that province and China proper. Recognizing this fact, the customs authorities had instituted rigid searches of all vessels coming down the Gorges to Ichang. Now the customs officials at Ichang, though employed by the Chinese government, were British citizens, and the British gunboats operating in this region had agreed to submit to search by the customs people at this port. The French had also agreed. The Japanese were noncommittal. There followed, then, that the two American gunboats presented themselves to the combine as possible conveyers of the drug.
So the Skipper reasoned, and he decided upon a course of action.
That same night the officers of the Palos gave their farewell party to Chungking. The mate and the doctor came up to the bungalow from the ship, leaving in command the chief bo’s’n’s mate, whom in this narrative we shall call Smith. The officers returned to the ship around two and found all quiet and serene as usual.
At quarters on the following morning the Skipper addressed his crew of 49 bluejackets plus the Chinese boatmen and one or two extra mess attendants whom it was the practice to carry. The Skipper told the men that an attempt had been made to bribe him not to search the ship during the coming voyage. He informed them that not only would the routine search be made but that it would be even more exhaustive than it had ever been before. He warned the men that he would hold them responsible for any opium which might be discovered; stated that in all probability members of the crew would be approached by the combine; and announced that he would recommend for a general court-martial any man in whose part of the ship opium would be found. That night all officers again went ashore for an official party, leaving Smith in command as before and returning on board around two o'clock as upon the preceding night.
On the morning of the 9th the Palos cast loose from her moorings and stood down the Yangtze, accompanied by the Standard Oil tug Meitan and her barge. An account of the breakdown of the pumps and the other incidents of this voyage to the foot of the Gorges was related in a preceding article, "Chungking to Ichang."
During our enforced stay at Kweichowfu the officers devoted a day to a thorough search for opium. The mate and the doctor began at the bow and worked aft, the Skipper watching to see that nothing was passed from one compartment to another. The search lasted five hours. In the crew's after bunkhouse was found the only result of our probing, a small amount of opium worth about $3,000. The culprit was one of the non-enlisted Chinese on board. The opium was thrown overboard in the presence of the crew, and the offender was banished to the shore.
Immediately after the Palos arrived at Ichang in tow of the Meitan the Commissioner of Customs called officially. He informed the Skipper that he had received information that the Palos was loaded to the guards with opium. He requested that the customs be permitted to search the vessel. The Skipper stated that he had supervised a thorough search and that there was no opium on board. He explained to the commissioner that our Navy Regulations do not permit the search of a United States man-of-war by foreign customs officials. The commissioner's features expressed polite incredulity, and he made the error of stating that no one but a customs official had more than an elementary idea of a proper search for opium. The mate, who was present at the interview, began somewhat obviously to be afflicted with a rising blood pressure, but the Skipper calmed him by repeating that the search had been satisfactorily exhaustive. The commissioner obstinately renewed his request, and the Skipper again declined, reiterating his reasons. With the announcement that he would have to take this up with higher authorities the commissioner left the ship.
That afternoon Yong Ki, the faithful steward of the Palos, came in fear and trembling to the Skipper with a confused statement that the Opium People were very angry, that they were blaming him for some miscarriage of their plans, and that he thought they would kill him. There seemed nothing to do but to warn the excited Chinese not to go ashore in the port and that he would be safe on board.
On the 17th information telegraphed from Shansi reported the mysterious disappearance of Captain McArthur from the British merchant vessel he commanded. This had occurred after a last-minute opium row before sailing from Ichang.
We were compelled to wait at Ichang for the arrival of the Monocacy, detailed to tow us down river to Sunday Island to turn us over there to the Elcano, for that sturdy old craft could not proceed higher than the island due to her draft. The broken down feed pumps had again been overhauled, but it was obvious that they were on their last legs and that attempting again to steam under our own power was out of the question.
On the 20th Yong Ki came again to the Skipper in a weeping condition. He was all but incoherent with terror, stated that he had again been threatened by the combine, and urged that we leave Ichang. All hands concurred in this desire, but there was no Monocacy, whose motive machinery was apparently in little better condition than that of the Palos, for she was taking a record length of time to get upriver from Hankow.
We observed that the customs people were keeping a watch on the Palos day and night. There seemed also an undue number of Chinese sampans hovering about the ship. In this uneasy atmosphere the Skipper and the mate saw to it that a stricter watch than normal was kept, and °_ne or the other stayed on board at all tunes, though this was not usually a requirement in small gunboats. In our occasional contacts with the Commissioner of Customs the subject of opium was carefully avoided. Whatever communication he had made to higher-ups evidently had produced no result so far as we were concerned. Only once did the Skipper reopen the subject. He asked the commissioner upon what he based his statement that the Palos had left Chungking with opium on board. The commissioner declined to answer that query, and no further reference was made to the matter.
On the 23d the Monocacy limped in, 9 days from Hankow and 23 out of Shanghai. It was a case of the blind leading the blind, but on the 25th the Monocacy towed the Palos down the river to Sunday Island, the river providing more motive Power than did our sister-ship. With relief we accepted a line from the Elcano. The jaundiced Monocacy left drearily for her painful voyage back up to Ichang.
On the 27th we arrived at Hankow in tow of the Elcano. Despite the uproar concerning the Russian Concession, which the Chinese were preparing to occupy, our first visitor was the Commissioner of Customs. He made the same demand upon the Skipper that his colleague at Ichang had requested, that he be permitted to search the Palos for opium. This was refused, the Skipper explaining his reasons. The demand was not pressed, but the persistent cropping up of this opium question was by this time seriously exacerbating the mate’s tendency toward apoplexy.
We attempted to repair the feed pumps; received one new one; installed it; made an independent brief cruise to try it out; broke down; received cobbling attention from the Force Engineer; made another trial cruise; broke down. The Force Engineer scratched his head, his intellects awhirl. We waited.
On the 28th our hearts were gladdened and our morale bolstered up when we sighted H.M.S. Scarab coming down the river towing H.M.S. Woodcock. We squared our shoulders and played much cockier golf that afternoon at the Club.
On October 1 occurred an annoying incident which appositely fitted in with the other puzzling and mysterious misfortunes which were enveloping our gallant gunboat. The Palos was alongside the Elcano, anchored somewhat out from the foreshore. That forenoon the Skipper had paid a round of official calls. On his return he shifted into dungarees, for the ship was being coaled. Sampans and barges all but completely surrounded the vessel. She was longer than the Elcano by some 20 feet, and her stern stuck out considerably beyond that of the “old sister.” It was halfpast eleven. The Skipper was sitting in the wardroom when the quartermaster burst in without formality.
“Sir,” he gasped, “there’s some kind of a captain upside down in the spuds aft!”
The Skipper raced out on deck, leaped over coal, and rushed aft. The quartermaster had not experienced a hallucination, though his wild demeanor had led the Skipper to suspect that such was the case. Distinctly there was some kind of a captain upside down in a tub of spuds on the stern. The Skipper dashed to the rescue. With the aid of the quartermaster he pulled the sputtering captain of a foreign cruiser out of the receptacle and dragged him to his feet, assisting him to disentangle his crushed cocked hat from his indignant head. Gawking at him in a stunned and ill-bred way were the Chinese messcooks whose morning job of peeling spuds had been interrupted in so astounding a fashion. The sailors in the launch alongside our quarter were ostentatiously staring at the Elcano’s stern.
The quartermaster assisted the Skipper to brush off the visitor and to attempt to true him up.
“Good heavens, sir!” exclaimed the Skipper to his fellow mariner. “How did this happen?”
The quartermaster, still in a state of confusion, replied for the incoherent visitor.
“I just come around the corner of the deckhouse, Captain. He was climbing over the life lines. And his sword caught and throwed him. He went smash into the spud tub. Thought I’d better report to you, sir. Lucky he didn’t fall overboard.”
The Skipper muttered soothing remarks to his disheveled and glaring guest, picked off a spud which seemed to be an integral part of the left epaulet, led the Captain to the wardroom. Temporarily bereft of carefully acquired English, the visitor was some moments recovering something resembling equanimity. Then he sternly declined grapejuice, refused coffee, rejected tea, explained that our stern provided the only method of approach with the vessel otherwise completely surrounded by coaling sampans, announced that he was returning the official call, announced that he was going, got up. The Skipper escorted him to the stern. The quartermaster solicitously assisted the Skipper to help his guest over the life lines into the gig. The launch backed clear with the quartermaster, as an afterthought, vigorously blowing his whistle. The Skipper shook his head and returned to the wardroom, ruefully pondering the fact that this call had not served to promote that amity and rapprochement which is probably the purport of official calls.
The Skipper felt that this incident added to the atmosphere of uneasiness and mystery which had enveloped the ship since her departure from Chungking. Why, he reflected, should his unfortunate guest have chosen the thick of coaling as the hour for the return of the call? When the mate returned from the Elcano and learned of this tragedy he suggested that a football suit and helmet be sent over to the foreign captain for use during his next official call on the Palos. And why, demanded the mate, were the messcooks peeling spuds at the hour of seven bells with dinner but thirty minutes away? We toyed with these mysteries until noon and then gave up the problems, licked.
The Elcano was needed at Hankow during the current crisis. So we made every effort to make Shanghai under our own power. After breaking down five times between Hankow and Kiukiang we bowed to Uncle Kismet and reported our condition to Shanghai. The Elcano was ordered to tow us to the metropolis.
We rolled so heavily off Woosung that our mainmast carried away. We sawed off the stump; straightened out our demoralized rigging; were successfully dumped off at the Old Dock by the Elcano, whose officers were unfeignedly glad to be rid of us, though polite and courteous to the end.
One hour before reaching Shanghai a radio from the Commander in Chief came for the Palos, ordering the Captain to report immediately upon arrival and directing that no communication be held between the ship and shore until further orders. The Skipper buckled on his sword and headed for the flagship.
Preliminary remarks over, the Skipper inquired as to the meaning of the quarantining of the ship from the shore. The Admiral handed him a dispatch.
It was from the American Minister in eking. It stated baldly that the Chief of the Chinese Customs Service had formally reported to the Minister that the Palos was coming down the Yangtze from Chungking; that the customs knew as a Positive fact that the gunboat was laden with a huge quantity of opium; that the captain of the ship had persistently refused to permit a search to be made; that the customs people requested the Minister to permit their Shanghai representatives to search the ship before communication was held with the shore.
The Skipper began at the beginning and told his side of the trouble. The Skipper then requested that a board of officers be ordered to search the Palos. The Admiral smiled and said that he had merely desired to make sure that all precautions against opium being carried had been taken, and that since he was satisfied the customs people would have to be. So he sent a dispatch to the Minister, stating that the ship had been properly searched at Kweichowfu and that there was no opium on board. The Skipper returned to the Palos, and the matter seemed ended.
For three weeks the gunboat lay at the Old Dock under repairs. Aside from still another weeping spell on the part of Yong Ki, who mumbled that the opium people were still threatening him but declined to give any more particulars, nothing further seemed brewing opiumly, and the matter sank into oblivion under the rush of duties and pleasures in which we were engaged.
Smith, the Chief Bo’s’n’s Mate, was keeping himself entirely on board. The Skipper observed this and was somewhat puzzled by so rigid an attention to duty. He spoke to Smith about taking some liberty while the opportunity presented itself, pointed out the fact that we would winter at Changsha, which was not exactly a sailorman’s paradise. Smith replied that he wasn’t feeling very well, and his white and haggard face and appreciable loss of weight seemed to confirm this. The doctor took a look at him, reported that he appeared all right.
Two days before we left Shanghai, Smith went ashore, but he was back within the hour. We had noted that he never seemed to sleep, for he was always up and about when we returned from our late parties.
At five o’clock the next morning after his brief liberty, Smith knocked on the mate’s door. The mate got up and came out on deck, assuming that some urgent matter required his presence. Smith, obviously in a funk, stammered out that they were trying to poison him. The mate looked at him sharply, saw that the man’s terror was pitiable, attempted to get some sense out of him. Smith burst into tears, and the mate, deciding that this must be Demon Rum operating, sent the man to his quarters with the suggestion that he sleep it off.
Changsha was red-tapedly yelling for help over an impending crisis there, and that day we were ordered to leave Shanghai the moment we completed our repairs. So we abruptly sailed at dawn the next morning, 24 hours before our scheduled time. Smith was on deck, but we observed that he stayed as much as possible in the lee of the deckhouse until we were clear of the dock and out in the stream. The man looked like a ghost. He had lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks, and his actions were blundering and uncertain.
We reached the mouth of the Whangpoo and turned left, heading up the Yangtze. As we straightened out on our course Smith came to the bridge. He saluted the Skipper and said: “I am ready to relieve you, Captain. You can go below, sir.”
The Skipper took one look at him, calmed him, sent the shocked messenger for the doctor. Smith was babbling when the doctor took him to sick bay, was in a strait jacket in another hour, and was presently shrieking and struggling in an appalling mania.
It all came out then. The doctor made notes of the man’s ravings, and the crew were only too glad to be able to unburden their minds. What had happened was this.
In Chungking, Smith had been approached by the combine with the proposal to smuggle a quantity of opium in the ship. They offered him a sum which would have made him wealthy for life, and he succumbed to this temptation. On the night prior to the attempt to bribe the Skipper the two men on watch in the Palos suddenly found the ship surrounded with sampans. Smith was on deck. He told the bluejackets that these were opium people and that if they valued their lives they must keep silent about this. While a watch was kept for a return to the ship of the officers, the Chinese worked swiftly and silently. Within an hour approximately $1,000,000 worth of opium had been stowed away in the gunboat—under floor boards; in sacks of provisions; in innocent looking paint drums; here, there, and everywhere.
Terrified by this knowledge and fearful of the consequences should they reveal it to the officers, the quartermaster and the fireman who had been on watch—neither having quite reached the age of 20 years— compromised by informing two or three of the older men in the crew the following morning.
It is difficult to make plain to readers who have never visited the Orient the attitude of the average foreigner there regarding opium. From our griffin days in Shanghai tale upon tale had been told us concerning the power and relentlessness of the combine. It was universally stated that betrayal of the opium people invariably was succeeded by disappearance and death of the offender, regardless of his position or nationality. Routine searches of ships by their commanding officers were considered by the combine as part of the game, legitimate proceedings which if successful were accepted as proper losses in the precarious trade. But woe befell the traitors, and disaster was the portion meted out to the bystander who chose to interfere or inform. There were spies employed by the customs, and the combine had its spies within the customs service. It was a game run upon the most delicate of rules, and the rewards were very great.
The conscientious old hands of the crew were therefore in a quandary over this situation, and the youthful quartermaster and the fireman were panic-stricken and in will-making moods. There was still the day or two to wait before we left Chungking. The men in possession of the secret went to Smith and begged him to have the opium removed. This he refused to do.
The warning given the crew by the Skipper on the morning of the 7th left the unhappy sailors in an unpleasant predicament. That afternoon they again urged Smith to tell the combine that the officers would search the ship and that they must remove the opium. Smith replied that it was too late, and he would do nothing. He told them that if they informed or interfered the opium people would unquestionably kill them at the first opportunity. It seemed a stalemate with death the alternative on the one hand and general court-martial on the other.
That night at midnight six men, their faces blackened with coal dust, naked to their waists and wearing dungaree trousers, seized Smith in his bunk, gagged and bound him, and left him trussed there. Through the ship they quietly worked, and tin after tin of opium slipped noiselessly over the side, sinking into the deep, swift current. When the job was done the ship was free of opium, save for the unknown private venture of the Chinese member of the crew. Smith was unbound and his gag removed. Neither he nor anyone but the men who composed the group knew the identity of these members of the Chungking Tea Party.
The ship sailed. Satisfied that the opium was on board, the combine watched the gunboat during her stay at Ichang, kept her under close observation at Hankow, at every anchorage. At Shanghai they maintained an efficient guard to make sure that the drug was not smuggled ashore.
The wretched Smith lacked the courage to tell the Chinese the facts in the matter. Had he done so immediately he would probably not have been molested. But he delayed and kept putting off the combine after we reached Shanghai. More and more insistent did they become. They decided he was holding out for more money, and during that last week they gave him several thousand dollars in currency, a sum which he promptly took ashore and sent away on the occasion of his brief liberty.
From that moment the pressure began. Letters in the possession of Smith after his collapse breathed threats which would have appalled a stouter-hearted man. But Smith was too weak to make a clean breast of the matter to the officers and claim the protection as to life which would have been accorded him. Fearful of the inevitable court-martial he chose to continue to attempt to carry through the wretched business. We were satisfied that if the ship had not abruptly sailed before her scheduled time Smith would have been killed.
He was violently insane when we reached Nanking. There he was transferred to a destroyer which was on the point of sailing for Manila. We heard that he had been transferred to the hospital there. He passed out of our lives.
Three years later the Skipper received a letter from Smith’s father. He stated that his son had been discharged from the Navy, had come home, was usually in his normal mind, but that the sight of an Oriental would send him into insane spasms of terror. The old man asked if any light could be given him as to the cause of his son’s trouble. He also wrote that Smith knew that he had a large sum of money somewhere but could not remember where it was deposited.
The Skipper wrote back the details of Smith’s collapse. He recollected that the man had sent regular allotments to a certain bank in San Francisco and suggested that inquiry be made there.
Six months later came a second letter from the old man. The money was in that bank, thousands of dollars, and Smith’s expert psychiatrist seemed to be making headway with his case, now that he knew the facts and the cause of the fear which was beclouding the man’s mind. In the end the doctor promised that he could surely cure Smith, though it would be expensive. The old man remarked in a postscript that it looked as if there wouldn’t be much of the ill-gotten gains left by the time that happy day would arrive.