Night of Sept. 5.... An American whose name by passport is John Morning reached here to-night on theChinese Eastern, having left Koupangtse this morning. According to his story, he was with the Russians, now in retreat from Liaoyang, on the night of Sept. 3, only forty-eight hours from this writing.Morning was in an unconscious condition upon arrival. His passage had been fourth-class for the journey, and he was packed among the coolies and refugees on an open flat-car so crowded that all but the desperately fatigued had room only to stand. This white man had fallen to the floor of the car, among the bare feet of the surging Oriental crowd, beneath their foul garments.... He was lifted forth from the car by the Chinese—a spectacle abjectly human, covered with filth; moreover, his body was incredibly bruised, his left puttee legging torn by a deep knife-wound that began at the knee, and traversed a distance of eight inches downward—the whole was gummed and black with blood; another knife-wound in his side was in an angry condition, and his clothing was stiffened from flow of it.A fewtaelsin paper and silver were found upon him; the passport, an unopened letter addressed to himself; also a manuscript addressed to a San Francisco paper, and to be delivered by John Morning. The natives reported that he had reached Koupangtse an hour before the arrival of theChinese Eastern; had employed a native to buy him fourth-class passage, paying the native also to help him aboard. He had collapsed, however, until actually among the Chinese on the flat-car. He had tasted neither food nor drink during the long day’s journey, nor in Koupangtse during the wait. The natives affirm that he crawled part of the distance up to the railway station; and that there were no English or Americans there.Upon reaching here, Morning was revived with stimulants, his wounds bathed and dressed, fresh clothing provided. His extraordinary vitality and courage indicate that he will overcome the shocks and exhaustion of a journey hardly paralleled anywhere, if his story be true. He asserts that he must be on his way to Tientsin to-morrow morning—but that, of course, is impossible.... He is not in condition to answer questions, although undoubtedly much is in his dazed and stricken brain for which the world is at this moment waiting.In his half-delirium, Morning seems occupied with the loss of a certain sorrel mare. He also reports the loss of his complete story of the battle, the preliminary fighting, the generals in character sketch, the terrain and all, covering a period of four months up to the moment of General Zarubaieff’s withdrawal from the city proper. This manuscript, said to contain over a hundred thousand words done on Chinese parchment, was in a wallet with the writer’s money, and was cut from him in the struggle on the bank ofthe Liao, when the wounds were received. His assailants were doubtlessHun huises.Whatever can be said about the irrational parts of his story, the young man appears to know the story of the battle from the Russian standpoint. He brings the peculiar point of view that it was the millet that defeated the Russians, although the superiority of the Japanese inmorale, markmanship, fluidity, is well known, etc.
Night of Sept. 5.... An American whose name by passport is John Morning reached here to-night on theChinese Eastern, having left Koupangtse this morning. According to his story, he was with the Russians, now in retreat from Liaoyang, on the night of Sept. 3, only forty-eight hours from this writing.
Morning was in an unconscious condition upon arrival. His passage had been fourth-class for the journey, and he was packed among the coolies and refugees on an open flat-car so crowded that all but the desperately fatigued had room only to stand. This white man had fallen to the floor of the car, among the bare feet of the surging Oriental crowd, beneath their foul garments.
... He was lifted forth from the car by the Chinese—a spectacle abjectly human, covered with filth; moreover, his body was incredibly bruised, his left puttee legging torn by a deep knife-wound that began at the knee, and traversed a distance of eight inches downward—the whole was gummed and black with blood; another knife-wound in his side was in an angry condition, and his clothing was stiffened from flow of it.
A fewtaelsin paper and silver were found upon him; the passport, an unopened letter addressed to himself; also a manuscript addressed to a San Francisco paper, and to be delivered by John Morning. The natives reported that he had reached Koupangtse an hour before the arrival of theChinese Eastern; had employed a native to buy him fourth-class passage, paying the native also to help him aboard. He had collapsed, however, until actually among the Chinese on the flat-car. He had tasted neither food nor drink during the long day’s journey, nor in Koupangtse during the wait. The natives affirm that he crawled part of the distance up to the railway station; and that there were no English or Americans there.
Upon reaching here, Morning was revived with stimulants, his wounds bathed and dressed, fresh clothing provided. His extraordinary vitality and courage indicate that he will overcome the shocks and exhaustion of a journey hardly paralleled anywhere, if his story be true. He asserts that he must be on his way to Tientsin to-morrow morning—but that, of course, is impossible.... He is not in condition to answer questions, although undoubtedly much is in his dazed and stricken brain for which the world is at this moment waiting.
In his half-delirium, Morning seems occupied with the loss of a certain sorrel mare. He also reports the loss of his complete story of the battle, the preliminary fighting, the generals in character sketch, the terrain and all, covering a period of four months up to the moment of General Zarubaieff’s withdrawal from the city proper. This manuscript, said to contain over a hundred thousand words done on Chinese parchment, was in a wallet with the writer’s money, and was cut from him in the struggle on the bank ofthe Liao, when the wounds were received. His assailants were doubtlessHun huises.
Whatever can be said about the irrational parts of his story, the young man appears to know the story of the battle from the Russian standpoint. He brings the peculiar point of view that it was the millet that defeated the Russians, although the superiority of the Japanese inmorale, markmanship, fluidity, is well known, etc.
... Morning lay in a decent room at the Rest House in Shanhaikwan. There seemed an ivory finger in his brain pointing to the sea—to Japan, to the States. So long as he was walking, riding, entrained, all was well enough, and the rest was mere body that had to obey—but when he stopped, the ivory finger grew hot or icy by turns; and as now, he watched in agony for the day and the departure of the train for Tientsin.
He would require help. Below the waist he was excruciating wreckage that for the present would not answer his will.... They were good to him here. The Chinese coolies had been good to him on the open car.... Lowenkampf, Fallows, good to him—so his thoughts ran—the sorrel Eve was his own heart’s mate. He loved her running, dying, striking. She had run until her heart broke. He could not do less. She had run until she was past pain—he must do that—and go on after that.... Was it still in his brain—the great story? Would it clear and write itself—the great story?
That was the question. All was well if he could get Liaoyang out in words. He would do it all over again on the ship. Every day the ship would be carrying him closer to the States. He was still on schedule. He would reach America on the first possible ship after the battle of Liaoyang—possibly, ahead of mails. On the voyage he would re-do the book—twenty days—five thousand words a day. He might do it better. It mightcome up clean out of the journey, the battle itself and the pictures strengthened, brightened, impregnated with fresh power.... Three weeks—every moment sailing to the States—the first and fastest ship!... The driving devil in his brain would be at rest. The big story would clear, as he began to write. The days of labor at first would change to days of pure instrumentation. He would drive at first—then the task would drive him.... But he must not miss a possible day to Japan—to Nagasaki.... He had not money for the passage to America. At this very moment he could not get out of bed—but these two were mere pups compared to the wolves he had met....
They found him on the floor drawing on his clothes in the morning—an hour before the train. His wounds were bleeding, but he laughed at that.
“You see, I’ve got to make it. You’ve been very kind. I’ll heal on the way—not here. I’ve got the big story. I’ve got to keep moving to think it out. I can’t think here. I’ll get on—thank you.”
And he was on. That night his train stopped for ten minutes at Tongu, the town near the Taku Forts, at the mouth of the Pei-ho.... All day he had considered the chance of getting ship here, without going on to Tientsin, seventy miles up-river. The larger ships lightered their traffic from Tongu; he might catch a steamer sailing to-night for Japan, or at least for Chifu.... It was getting dark.
The face that looked through the barred window at the Englishman in charge of the station at Tongu unsettled the latter’s evening and many evenings afterward.
“Is there a ship from the river-mouth to-night?”
Morning repeated his question, and perceived that the agent had dropped his eyes to the two hands holding the ticket-shelf. Morning’s nails were tight in the wood; he would wobble if he let go.
“Yes, there’s the littleTungsheng. She goes off to-night——”
“For Japan?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t carry passengers—that is—unless the Captain gives up his quarters, and he has already done that this trip.”
“Deck passengers——”
“Sure, all carry coolies out of here—best freight we have.”
“Do you sell the tickets?”
“Who’s going?”
“My servant.... I won’t go on to Tientsin if I can get—get him on to-night——”
“The launch and lighter are supposed to be down shortly from Tientsin—that’s all I can say. It’s blowing a bit. She may not clear.”
“She’ll clear if any does?”
“Yes, Himmelhock has taken her out of here worse than this. You’d better decide—I’ve got to go out now. The train’s leaving.”
Seventy miles up the river, he thought,—the wrong way if he stuck to the train. Every mile that ivory finger would torture him. His brain now seemed holding back an avalanche. If he chose falsely, he would tumble down the blackness with the rocks and glaciers.... This Englishman looked a gamester—he might help. Perhaps he wasn’t a corpse.
“I’ll stay,” he said, and the story and all his purpose wobbled and grew black.... He mustn’t forget. He mustn’t fall.... So he stood there holding fast to the ticket-shelf, which he could not feel—held and held, and the train clattered, grew silent, and it was dark.
“Where’s your servant?”
Morning’s lips moved.
“Where is your servant?”
“I am my servant.”
“I can’t give a white man deck passage. It’s not only against the rules—but against reason.”
Morning groped for his arm. “Take me into the light,” he said.
The man obeyed.
“What day is this?”
“Night of September six.”
“I left Liaoyang the night of the third. I rode a good horse to death—along the Taitse, over the Hun and the Liao. I rode through theHun huisestwice. I was all cut up and beaten—the horse went over backward in the Hun, and in the gut on the bank of the Liao.... I was in Liaoyang for the battle. I was there four months waiting for the battle. They took my story—hundred thousand words—theHun huisesdid, in the fight on the Liao bank. The horse killed herself running with me ... but I’ve got it all in my head—the story. I’ll get to the States with it before any mail—before any other man. It’s all in my head—the whole Russian-end. I can write it again on the ship to the States in three weeks.... I’ve got to get off to-night. You’re the one to help me.... See these——”
Morning opened his shirt and then started to undo his legging.
“For God’s sake—don’t.... But you’ll die on the deck——”
“No, the only way to kill me would be to wall me up—so I couldn’t keep moving.”
“I’ll go down to the river with you in a few minutes.”
And then he had John Morning sobbing on his shoulder.
17
TheEnglishman at Tongu was a small, sallow man, with the face of one who is used to getting the worst of it. Tongu, as a post, was no exception from an outsider’s point of view. Morning saw this face in[Pg 76]odd lights during the days that followed. It came to the chamber of images—and always he wanted to break down, and his hands went out for the shoulder.... He remembered a pitching junk in the windy blackness at the mouth of the Pei-ho. (He had seen the low mud-flats of the Taku forts from here in another service.)... TheTungshenglooked little—not much bigger than the junk, and she was wooden. There was chill and a slap of rain in the blackness.
“Hul-lo, who is dere?” The slow, juicy voice came from the door of the pilot-house.
“Endicott. I’ve got a deck passenger——”
“Huh—dere dick as meggots alretty——”
“This is a kitchen coolie of mine—he must go. Send someone down to make a place and take his transportation——”
The grumbling that followed was a matter of habit rather than of effectiveness. Morning seemed to see the lower lip from which the voice came, a thick and loppy member.... The mate came down, stepping from shoulder to back, across the complaining natives. They were three deep on the deck. He kicked clear a hole in the lee of the cabin.... Morning sank in, and Endicott bent to whisper:
“Put the grub-basket between your knees and don’t take your hands off it.... Put the blanket over it. It’s a thick, good blanket. I could give you a better passage, but they wouldn’t take you—honest, they wouldn’t. If they see you’re white, tell old Himmelhock you’re Endicott’s house-coolie. He can’t do anything now.... If you live, write and send the big story to Endicott at Tongu.”
Morning was sinking to sleep. He felt the warmth of the blanket, a thick, rough blanket Endicott had donated. Its warmth was like the man’s heart.... Morning’s hands went out. A coolie growled at him.... There was no worry now. It was the night ofthe sixth, and he was sailing. He could do no more; the ivory finger in his brain neither froze nor burned.... The pitching did not rouse him—nor the men of sewers and fields—sick where they sat—woven, matted together, trusting to the animal heat of the mass to keep from dying of exposure. John Morning lay in the midst of them—John Morning whose body would not die.
The days and nights rushed together....
Sometimes he wondered if he were not back at the shipping—in some stock-car with the horses—but horses were so clean compared to this.... When he could think, he put clean lint to his wounds. He scorned pain, for he was on his way; and much was merciful coma.
There was rain, deluges; and though the air rose heavy as amber afterward, the freshness at the time was salvation. He learned as it is probable no other American ever learned, what it means to live in the muck of men. All one at the beginning and at the ending, it is marvelous how men separate their lives in the interval—how little they know of one another, and how easily foolish noses turn up. Here was a man alive—dreaming of the baths he had missed, of Japanese Inn baths most of all.
“Who am I?” he asked.... “John Morning,” would whip back to him from somewhere. “And who in hell is John Morning to revolt at the sufferings of other men?”
He had seen the coolies in the steerage of many ships—even these massed deck passages of the Yellow and China Seas and the Coasting trade. He had looked at them before as one looks into a cage of animals. Now he was one of those who looked out, one of theslumees. Once he asked, “Is this the bottom of the human drain, and if not—must I sink to it?”
The Chinese did steal his food that first night, but fed him occasionally from their own stock. Finding him white, they fouled him, but kept him warm....TheTungshengran into Chifu harbor to avoid a storm, and a full day was lost. John Morning had no philosophy then—a hell-minded male full of sickness—not good to view, even through the bars of a cage. But at best to sit five hours, where he sat more than five days and nights, would condemn the mind of any white man or woman to chaos, or else restore it to the fine sanity of Brotherhood.
And then the day when the breeze turned warm and the Islands were green!... Coolies were men that hour, men with eyes that melted to ineffable softness. It was like Jesus coming toward them on the sea—the green hills of Japan. Their hearts broke with emotion; they wept and loved one another—this mass all molten and integrated into one. It was like the Savior coming to meet them through the warm bright air. He would make them clean; their eyes would follow Him always....
Morning was not the only one who had to be carried ashore at Shimoneseki, after the quarantine officer had finished with the herd. His passport saved him. “I had to come. It was the first ship out of Tongu. Deck passage was the only way they would take me,” was the simple story. He was fevered, but strangely subdued that day. Himmelhock was at the door of the pilot-house, when Morning looked up from the shore a last time, and his native sailors, bare to the thigh, were sluicing the decks.
The bath was heaven. He was able to walk afterward. The officials burned his clothing, but made it possible for him to buy a few light things. The wound in his leg was healing; the bruises fading away. The wound in his side did not heal; it was angry as a feline mouth.
He had bandages, but no stockings; clean canvas clothing, but no underwear.... He found that he had to wait before answering when anyone spoke; andthen he was not quite sure if he had answered, and would try again—until they stopped him. Somewhere long ago there was a parrot whose eyes were rimmed—with red-brown, and of stony opaqueness. He couldn’t recall where the parrot was, but it had something to do with him when he was little, almost beyond memory. His eyes now felt just as the parrot’s had looked.
It was a night run back to Nagasaki by rail—his thought was of ships, ships, ships. He could stand off from the world and see the ships—all the lines of tossing, steaming ships. Then he would go down to the deck of one—and below and aft where Asiatics were crowded together. To the darkest and thickest place among them he would go, and there lie and rest until the finger in his brain roused him. Then he would find that the train had stopped. It was the halt that awakened him.
There were two ships, all but ready to clear for the States, lying in the harbor of Nagasaki that morning. The first was the linerCoptic, but she had to go north first, a day at Kobe, and two days at Yokohama, before taking the long southeastern slide to Honolulu. She was faster than the American transport,Sickles(with a light load of sick and insane from the Islands), but the latter was clearing for Honolulu at sundown and would reach San Francisco at least one day earlier than the liner. Moreover, theCopticwould have recent mails; theSickleswould beat the mails.
Money was waiting for him at Tokyo, less than an hour’s journey from Yokohama; he would have good care and a comfortable passage home on the old liner, but his brain burned at the thought. Four days north—not homeward.... TheSickleswas clipper-built—she was white and clean-lined, lying out in the harbor, in the midst of black collier babies. She was off for Home to-night. He had traveled home once before on a transport. He was American and she—the flag wasthere, run together a bit in the vivid light, but the flag was there! And to-night he would be at sea—pulling himself together for the big story, alone with the big story—the ship never stopping—unless they stopped in ocean to drop the dead....
The actual cost of the transport passage is very little, merely a computation for food and berth; the difficulty is to obtain the permit. As it was, he had not enough money, barely enough to get up to Yokohama, second class on theCoptic; and yet, this hardly entered. It was like a home city, this American ship, to one who had been in the alien heart of the Chinese country so long. He would know someone, and a telegram from ’Frisco would bring money to him. He had a mighty reliance from the big story.
The U. S. quartermaster at Nagasaki was a tired old man. He advised Morning to cable to Manila for permission. Morning did not say that he lacked money for this, but repeated his wish to go. The old man thought a minute and then referred him to Ferry, theSicklesquartermaster. He had been doing this for thirty years, referring others to others so that all matters merely struck and glanced from him. Thus he kept an open mind. Morning wanted something to take from this office to Ferry of theSickles. The resistance he encountered heated him. The smell of the deck-passage was in his nostrils; it seemed in his veins, and made him afraid that others caught the taint. The old quartermaster did not help him. Morning could hear his own voice, but could not hold in mind what he said.... The officer did not seem to be interested in Liaoyang. This disturbed him. It made him ask if he had not gone mad after all—if he could be wrong on this main trend, that he had something the world wanted.
He took asampanat the harbor-front and went aboard the transport. Ferry, theSicklesquartermaster, was a tall, lean man with a shut smile that drooped.The face was a pinched and diminished Mergenthaler, and brought out the clouds and the manias of Morning’s mind.
Were all quartermasters the same? What had become of men? Had the world lost interest in monster heroisms? Ferry did not help him—on the contrary, stood looking down with the insolence of superior inches. Morning found himself telling about the sorrel mare. That would not do. He returned to the main fact that he had the big story and must get across the Pacific with it.
“I can’t take you——”
Morning heard it, but couldn’t believe. He tried to tell about theHun huisesand the loss of the manuscript, the walk to Koupangtse——
“Really—it’s no affair of mine. I can’t take you on.... TheCopticis sailing——”
And just now Mr. Reever Kennard appeared on the deck. The summer had added portliness. He was in flannels—a spectacle for children and animals.... The insignificance of all about was quickened when Mr. Reever Kennard appeared. The decks were less white, sailors, soldiers more enlisted. John Morning became an integer of theTungsheng’sdeck-passage again, and the lining of his nostrils retained the reek of it.
“How do you do, Mr. Kennard?” he said. His back was different. He felt a leniency there, very new or very ancient, as he turned to Ferry, adding: “This gentleman knows me. We parted in Tokyo this Spring, when I went over with the Russians. I met him long ago in the Philippine service. He will tell you——”
Ferry’s face grew suddenly saturnine, his eyes held in the glance of the famous correspondent’s.
“You’ll please count it closed—I can’t take you.”
Morning now turned to Kennard, who was sealing with his tongue a little flap of cigar-wrapper which may have prevented the perfect draught. Morning bowedand moved aft, where the dust of the coaling was thick, and the scores of natives, women and men, who handled the baskets, were a distraction which kept the reality from stifling him. Presently he went ashore and it was noon.... He could not understand Kennard; could not believe in an American doing what Ferry had done, to a man who had the big story of Liaoyang. It was some hideous mistake; he had not been able to make himself understood.
TheSickleslaunch was leaving the pier at two. Morning was there and took a seat. He was holding himself—the avalanche again—and rehearsing in his mind what he should say to Ferry. His brain was afire; the wound in his side had scalded him so long that his voice had a whimper in it. He had not eaten—the thought was repulsive—but he had bought drink in the thought of clearing his brain and deadening his hurt....
His brain was clearer on the launch, but the gin fumed out of him as he approached the upper deck, where Ferry’s quarters were.
The Quartermaster saw him, but was speaking to an infantry captain. Morning waited by the rail. Many times he thought—if he could only begin to speaknow. Yet he feared in his heart when Ferry turned to him, he would fail. It was something little and testy in the man—something so different from what he had known in the great strains of Liaoyang—except for Luban. Yes, Ferry was like Luban, when Luban was in the presence of a fancied inferior.... They talked on—Morning thought of murder at last. A peculiar wiry strength gathered about the idea of murder in its connection with Ferry’s dark, mean face. He felt all the old strength in his hands, and more from days of pain—days of holding one’s self—will, body, brain.
“Well——” Ferry had turned to him suddenly.
Morning’s thoughts winged away with a swarm ofdetails of the crime.... “I could tell you something of the Story—I could show you how they cut me on the Liao—theHun huises——”
“If you come to this deck again—I’ll send you ashore in irons.”
At four that afternoon Morning saw theCopticdraw up her chains and slide out of the harbor, with the swift ease of a river-ferry.... He could not count himself whipped on theSickles—and this is the real beginning of John Morning. He was Fate-driven. The man who did not have the courage to ask his rights in Tokyo—to inquire the reason of his disbarment, was not through with the American transportSickles. A full day ahead of the mails in San Francisco—and he was waiting for the dusk. The fight had been brought to him. He was dull to the idea of being whipped.
Three enlisted men were drinking in the little apothecary shop which Morning had used for the day’s headquarters. They belonged to theSickles. They had been taking just one more drink for many minutes. He told them he was sailing on the transport and joined them in asampanto the ship when it was dark. The harbor was still as a dream; the dark blending with the water.... They touched the bellying white plates of the ship. Morning seemed to come up from infinite depths.... The men were very drunk; they had ordered rapidly toward the end; the effect caught up as swiftly now. They helped each other officiously. Morning put on the fallen hat of one who had become unconscious.... The watch was of them, a corporal, who was no trouble-maker. He blustered profusely and hurried them below.... Morning was bewildered. He had spoken no word, but helped the others carry the body, a wobbly deputation, down among the hammocks.... He heard the voices of those maimed in mind.... He placed his end of the soldier’s body down, left his companions, and made his way forward, to where thehammocks were farther apart. Early years had given him a sort of enlisted man’s consciousness of things; and he knew now not to take another’s place. He chose one from a pile of hammocks and slung it forward, close to the bulk-head of the bedlam, and well out of the lights.... He lay across his only baggage, a package containing a thousand sheets of Chinese parchment. He lay rigid, trying to remember if out-going ships took a pilot out of Nagasaki.
He heard the anchor-chain. He was very close to it. The voices of the sun-struck and vino-maddened men from the Islands were deadened by the hideous grating of the links in the socket.... It was not too late for him to be put ashore even now; since it was war-time. Of course there would be a pilot, for the harbor was mined.... He drew the canvas about his ears, but the voices of the brain-dead men reached him.... Cats, pirates, and river-reptiles terrified them; one man was still lost in a jungle set with bolo-traps; the emptiness of others was filled by strange abominations glad of the flesh again.
18
Hehad been listening to Duke Fallows for a long time—Duke’s voice blended with war and storm and a woman’s laugh.... Then he reverted to the idea of murdering Ferry. Finally someone said:
“He’s a new one from Nagasaki. He’s got the fevers——”
And then:
“Who in hell is he?”
They began to ask questions. Morning answered nothing. Day had come. He heard the throb of the engines, felt the swell of the sea, but the strength of yesterday’s concentration was still upon him. It hadbuilt a wall around him, holding the life of his mind there; as a life of low desires imprisons the spirit to its own vile region after death.... He did not speak, but looked from face to face for Ferry.
They ceased to expect an answer from him.... A young doctor appeared. His eyes rolled queerly; his cheek folded over his mouth, as if he were beyond words from drink, and tremendously pleased with his prowess. They called him Nevin. He prepared himself profoundly for speech. Morning now realized the nimbleness of Nevin’s hands, unwinding the filthy bandages. Presently, the Doctor straightened up, passed his hand over his brow, tongued the other cheek, and after a sweating suspense ordered:
“Take him to the hospital.”
A white room.... The Doctor came again. They took his clothing and bathed him.... He heard and smelled the sea through an open port ... glad, but utterly weary ... waiting for Ferry.
“My God—not only cut, but trampled——” a voice said.
Morning felt if he were alone with Nevin he could have said something.... The Doctor looked like a jockey he had once known. It wasn’t that, however, that gave him heart, but the quick, gentle hands.... More and more as he watched the dusty face with its ineffable gravity, he saw bright humanity burning like a forge-fire behind the mask. This brought tears to his own eyes. Nevin, seeing them, became altogether nervous to look at, seemed to have a walnut in his mouth.
And now John Morning felt himself breaking—he was brittle, hard like glass—and his last idea concerned the package of Chinese parchment which they had not brought from the hammock.... Six days afterward he asked for it.
For a short while each day, during the interval, he just touched the main idea and sank back to sleep. Hesuffered very little. The after-effects of his journey from Liaoyang tried to murder him in various ways, but relaxation, nourishment, good air and care worked as a sort of continuous anæsthesia. On this sixth day the Doctor appeared to ignore his question about the package of paper, but leaned forward, glanced to the right and left, as if to communicate a plan to scuttle the ship, and said:
“You’re one more little man. You’ve had a new one each day—pneumonia, sclerosis, brain-fever.... My hospital report on your case will drive the Major-Surgeon into permanent retirement.... What did you say was the matter to-day—Chinese parchment?”
“I’ve got so much to do, Doctor?... What day is this?”
“Morning of the nineteenth.”
The color swept into Morning’s face, terror into his eyes.
“I didn’t think it was so bad as that—I can’t lay up any more—twelve days left.... Two weeks and two days since I rode out of Liaoyang——”
“I’ll have to let ’em put you in the forward hutch—if you begin to talk Liaoyang, now that your fever’s down. There wasn’t any Americans in that fighting——”
“I’m not a soldier——”
Nevin wrung his hands. A thought recurred to Morning.
“There was a couple of letters in my clothes—one addressed to a paper in ’Frisco, and one to me.”
The other was curious enough to send an orderly to search.
“Have him bring the package of paper, too,” Morning said. When all was brought in good order, he added: “This letter to me I’ll read later. The larger package is Duke Fallows’ first hurried story of the battle of Liaoyang. I won’t read that either, because I’ve got to doone of my own. I did one, you know—ten times as long as this—but theHun huisesgot it on the Liao-crossing, from Tawan—that’s where I got cut up. Morning of the fourth, it was.... The sorrel mare did fifteen miles with her guts sticking out, and I walked thirty to Koupangtse, with these wounds and smashed from a couple of falls—before the morning of the fifth.... You can look at Duke Fallows’ story, Doctor, and I’ll take a little doze——”
Fallows’ battle was done clearly as a football game, and as briskly, to the withdrawal of the Russian lines upon the inner positions of the city and the flanking movement of Kuroki. A dramatic pause then to survey the Russian force on the eve of disaster, from which the reader drew the big moral sickness. After that Lowenkampf, the millet and the Ploughman. In quite a remarkable way Fallows turned the reader now from the mass to the individual. In a little trampled place in the grain the battle was lost by the Russians and won by Japan.... The Doctor was interrupted several times, but no force was missed. It was a new voice to him. He wondered if Fallows would make the world hear it. It seemed to compel a reckoning.
The Fallows story laughed all the way. One did not have to look twice at a sentence to understand, yet two readings did not wear it out, nor would it leave one alone. All the time the Doctor read, matters he had heard in delirium from the lips of John Morning came back.
Nevin remembered the tears on the first morning, the choke in his own throat; the first sight of the wounds, the queer, extra zeal he had put into this case. Finally he could hardly wait to learn the rest—chiefly how John Morning had happened to be lying in the darkest end of the hammock-hole, over against the insane compartment.... Yet he did not wake up his patient. When Morning finally opened his eyes, it was time fornourishment. Nevin brought a glass of extra wine before inquiring. “First, tell me—has Ferry seen me?”
“Captain Ferry, the quartermaster?”
“Yes.”
“I’d rather think not. He’s about occasionally—but his truck with the sick men is mostly transportation and nourishment——”
“The second time I came to ask him to take me across that afternoon—the second time,” Morning said slowly, “he told me that if I appeared on his deck again he’d send me ashore in irons. You see theSicklesis to beat theCopticin. I had to come. Why, the mails couldn’t beat me through from Liaoyang.... I finally got aboard with some soldiers—but I would have leeched to the anchor.... And, say, I think I knew you that morning. It seemed as if I could let go when I felt your hands——”
The two were quiet. The Doctor looked obliquely at an open port with one eye shut, as if he were not sure of the count....
Accompanying the manuscript was a letter to Noyes, editor ofWestern States, which chiefly concerned John Morning. Many brave things were said.... Nevin, deeply stirred with the whole business, saw the Ploughman coming forth from the millet—saw the Ploughman going home. That little drama so dear to Fallows’ heartwasgreater than Liaoyang. Nevin saw that such things are deathless.... Deathless—that’s the word. They look little at the time in the midst of thunder and carnage; but the thunder dies away and the rains come and clean the stains—and the spirit of it all lives in one deed or in one sentence. A woman nurses the sick at Scutari, and the Crimean war is known for the angel of its battlefield, by the many who do not know who fought, nor what for.... Nevin felt the big forces throbbing in the world—the work of the world. It had come to him distantly before. It had pulled himout of the comfort and ease of his home town to serve the sick at sea and in the Islands.
The mystery of service. He had never dared tell anyone. His voice broke so easily. He had covered the weakness in leers and impediments, so the world would not see. He had talked of his rights and his wages, the dusty-faced little man. Mystery of Service—and men were ashamed when it touched them.
But Fallows, laughing and so powerful, this boy’s man-friend, wasn’t afraid. Was the boy afraid? What had driven him? Did the boy know what had driven him? What, in God’s name, had driven this human engine that would not stop—that threw off poisons and readjusted itself against the individual and collective organizations of death?
Nevin was shaken by the whole story—it girded, girdled him.... Let Ferry come. Ferry was one of those bleak despoilers of human effort, whose presence consumed the reality in another. What was Ferry anyway and Ferry’s sort—a spoiled child or an ancient decadent principle? Was it merely a child-soul with a universe ahead, or was he very old and very ill—incorrigible self-love on its road back to nothing?... But the Ploughman lived, Fallows lived, the boy Morning lived—their work was marching on.
The Doctor did not speak, because his voice would break. He went about his work instead—swift magnetic hands.... At least, he could stand between Morning and the quartermaster—if there were need.
When he came back Morning was at work, a hard bright look of tension about him, and a line of white under the strange young beard....
“I think I can get it going now. I think it is beginning to come again,” he said in a hushed tone. The Doctor arranged the pillows better, sharpened an extra pencil and went out.
“I may have to do those first pages again,” he saidan hour later. “It’s hard to get out of the hospital—you know, what I mean—a man’s bath is so important to one lying-up that it shuts out a battle-line. What a fool a sick man is. But I’ll get it——”
He fell asleep in the dusk before the candles came. The Doctor found him cool, his breathing normal.... The next day Morning worked until Nevin remonstrated.
“You’ll die, if you go on——”
“I’ll die, if I don’t,” said Morning. The Doctor knew in his heart that it was true. Still they compromised. That night, as Morning dropped down into an abyss of exhaustion, he mumbled the whole story of Eve—the sorrel mare. “She rose to her feet—white death in her eyes,” he finished....
Nothing attracts the eye on ship-board like a man at work. All idle ones are caught in the current and come to pay their devoirs to the man mastered by a strong task.... The Doctor had Morning taken to an extra berth in his own state-room. The door had a spring lock, for many medicines and stores were there. Ferry was not likely to happen in the Doctor’s quarters. The latter even doubted if he would recognize Morning. He came and went, as the task drove on. Once Morning stopped to tell him about the deck passage on theTungsheng, and another time about his brush with theHun huisesin the ravine across the river from Tawan.... The Doctor saw that Morning had made a wonderful instrument of himself; he studied how the passion of an artist works on the body of man. The other found that so long as he ate regularly and fell asleep without a struggle—he was allowed to go on.
TheSickleswas swinging down into the warmth. The sick man had a bad day, lying in the harbor at Honolulu.
“It isn’t the work, Doctor—it’s the ship’s stopping,” Morning said, squirming in the berth. “It makes myhead hot. I see steamy and all that. I had it when theTungshenglay up for a day in Chifu on account of the blow.... I had it that day in Nagasski when Ferry wouldn’t take me on. I’ll be all right to-night.... Give me a little touch of that gin and lime juice——”
“Just lime juice when heads get hot.... You’re a clever little drunkard. I’ve been wondering how far you’d go.... Yes, we’ll clear to-night.... Ferry’s ashore. Come out and see the black boys dive for pennies.”
“There’s something doing with this knife-wound—it doesn’t heal,” the Doctor said, mid-way between the Islands and the Farallonnes. “The leg’s all right. Organs and all the little organs seem to thrive on work. That is, they’re no worse. The leg heals—but this one—you seem to have established a permanent drain——”
“Fifty pages yesterday—two hundred words a page,” Morning muttered.
“Yes—and the day before—and to-morrow—and the night we left Honolulu.... If a man worked that way for money, he’d be as dead as Ferry inside of a month.... Have you read your friend Fallows’ story yet?”
“No, I don’t dare—a sick man isn’t all himself. Andthisstory is me. It’s got to be me. It’s better in places than the other, the one I lost.... I haven’t read Duke’s letter to me yet. He’s strong medicine. He keeps coming back to me, as it is. I want to get off alone when the work is done and think. You can’t see him all, when he’s in a room with you.... He was like you, in being a friend to me.... Yet, I seem to know you better. You’ve helped me so. I’m pretty happy the way the story is coming——”
“See how long you can go without a drink to-day.”
“It starts me off, you see. It doesn’t seem to touch me—just steams right off with the work——”
“That’s rotten sophistry. I’m watching you——”
Nevin had never seen a body so driven by will. Morning appeared no worse; certainly he was no better; his brain was in absolute abeyance; his will crashed through clouds of enervation and irresolution. There were times when Nevin believed Morning would collapse, when he was finished with Liaoyang, but he was not so sure now. He was sure, however, that he must not interfere except in extremity.... This was part of the big work. Somehow he trusted in Duke Fallows—who had allowed the boy to write the detailed battle-end, and gone back to Europe to feed the babes of the Ploughman. That last made him want to doctor the whole world....
Morning had done the story and re-written the lead. TheSickleswould enter the Gate at daylight.
“There’s seventy-five or eighty thousand words of it. It’s good—unless I’m crazy. It’s good, unless this is all a dream. God, I’m thirsty.”
With the work done for the day, however, he asked for lime juice and water. His temperature was less than two points above normal; nothing had broken; yet the voyage had not replenished Morning’s body. He could hardly stand.
“To-night I’ll read the Fallows’ stuff—and the letters.... Doctor, can you get me ashore early?”
“Think a minute—you don’t know what you ask——”
“Quarantine——”
Nevin nodded. “There’s extra attention to a ship like this—they’ll have to see that running wound of yours for instance——”
“Not if you don’t report it——”
The Doctor’s lower jaw reached down, and to the right, finding the walnut. “You wouldn’t even read Duke Fallows’ story before you wrote yours. A man can’t lie in his own work——”
“You’ve been so good,” Morning said huskily. “I begin to expect miracles——”
“You can get messages—telegrams, letters—ashore.... And then it may only take a couple of hours. There isn’t any contagion here that I know of.”
Morning first read Fallows’ letter to Noyes, editorWestern States. It told of the story accompanying—but more of the bearer. Laughing, loving-hearted, eloquent—Fallows was all through it, and fine gifts of the man’s thinking. There was suggestion to Noyes to use Morning’s story and get it across simultaneously in New York. “The boy has never yet, so far as I can see, found time to arrange a decent payment for his work. Please observe that unless some one, equally as capable, gets into Port Arthur, Morning’s story will be the biggest feature of the war in a newspaper way. I’m going on to Europe on the Ploughman story. Let Morning do the big battle—I’ll begin to crackle later.”
And then Morning read the story.... His voice trailed up finally from the shadows of lower berth. “It’s good,” he said to the Doctor after midnight.
“It’s dam’ good. It’s better than mine.... He was alive with it—I mean with thePloughman. It’s the way he did it. He tried to get it across before we separated. He told me from every angle—told Lowenkampf—told them all at the station at Yentai. None of us could see.... He was crazed about it—that we couldn’t see. We were all choked with blood and death that night. He said Kuropatkin and the others would see that the Ploughman was right—if they had a sense of humor. Such density to humor, he called the sin against the Holy Ghost——”
After they had talked many minutes, Morning broke the seal to his own letter and learned why he had been barred from the earlier Japanese armies.
19
Thefineness of Fallows, of Nevin, of Endicott, the station-agent at Tongu, the risen humanity of the Ploughman—Morning’s soul to sense these men was empty within him. All that he knew was blood and blow and force and mass and hate. He lay panting and possessed. As he had plotted in delirium how to kill Ferry, dwelling upon the process and the death; so Reever Kennard came in now for a hatred as perfect and destructive. The letter had called up something of the same force which had driven John Morning from Liaoyang, over or through every barrier to the present hour in which theSickleslay off the entrance of the Golden Gate waiting for dawn, thirty-six hours ahead of theCoptic.
His work was diminished in his own mind; the value of his story was lost, the zest to market it, the sense of the world’s waiting. He was a thief in the eyes of men. A man cannot steal. They believed him a thief.... He thought of moving about the halls of theImperialthat day—of his thoughts as he had watched from the window in the billiard-room while the picture was taken. He had been tranced in terror.... Had he but known, he would have made a hell in that house. He saw Reever Kennard again on the deck of theSickles—his turning to Kennard for help—unparalleled shame.... The thing he desired with such terrible zeal now was enacted in his brain. That hour on the deck of theSickleswas repeated, but this time he knew what Kennard had done. He called him to the lie in imagination. The jowl was heavy with scorn and the small slow eyes were bright with fear—yet they took nothing back and Morning moved closer and closer demanding, until the devil broke from him, and his knotted hand sank into the soft center of the man. He watched the writhing of that clean flanneled liar, watched him arise.The hand sank once more ... the vile play romping through his mind again and again—hideous fighting of a man brought up among stable and race-track and freight-route ruffians—the fighting that feels no pain and only a knockout can stop....
“Wow—it’s hot as hell in here,” came from Nevin in the upper bunk.
A little before dawn, utterly ravaged by the poison of his thinking, Morning was struck by the big idea. He turned on the light, steadied himself to paper and pencil and wrote to Noyes of theWestern States: