Men Make Mistakes

Front matter

A Mystery Aboard a China Smuggler-Ship

Men Make Mistakes

A Complete Novelette

II

THERE was no doubt that Howell had let me in for something, but not unwarned. The more I saw of the little skipper, the better I liked him. He had a steward, an engineer, and me—nobody else to trust, and the deuce to pay.

It seemed rather ridiculous about the paying, but the comprador died as we were puffing out to sea, and Howell had him buried quickly, without formalities. This brought the horns and hoofs home to us. I stood at the bridge-rail for a time, then found a deck-chair and took the darkness comfortably, and reflected. I did not know everything, but I could guess at some things. That comprador had been poisoned today, in such a way that he could not speak again. What had he found out, that he must be put out of the way before he could tell it to Howell?

A queer business all around.

The old hooker steamed steadily out and away, the riding-lights and harbor lights of Port Balik fell away and were swallowed up, and we were out at sea—cool, starlit, serene. Presently there was a little stir forward, and I saw two lanterns, both red, appear in the bows. Search as I would, however, there was no other light visible ahead. Only the sea and the dark uplift of the hills to port.

“Better turn in,” said Howell, coming toward me from the pilot house. “No telling when the other craft will turn up. Perhaps not until toward morning.”

“Doesn't your mate ever show up when the ship gets out to sea?” I asked.

“Hm!” he said. “Old Johnson would, yes—but he won't. That bottle he helped himself to must have had a dose out of the same flask that fixed poor Sing.”

A stiff jolt, this. I merely said good night and went to my own cabin, thinking a few thoughts as I went. No need to ask Howell if he and the chief were taking care of themselves. I could read, in every word and tone he had uttered, an unspoken, but grim, assurance and warning. Something doing—and that sleek second mate behind it!

I locked my door before turning in that night, and hid the pistol to boot.

Trampling of feet, shrill Chinese voices, the stoppage of thrumming engines—these things wakened me, sent me piling into my clothes. It was three o'clock, still all dark outside. I slipped into my jacket, pocketed the pistol again and went outside.

Starlight through a thin haze, no moon, a ship's lights fifty yards off to starb8ard. Two red lanterns in her bows, also, that flickered out a moment later. A Chinese voice was hailing us, and another made reply from the bridge. Then I heard Howell's crisp accents.

“Mr. McGregor! Ask if they've got the stuff aboard for me, as well as your lot.”

The second officer put the query in Chinese and received a spattering reply in the same tongue.

“Aye, sir,” he said to Howell in English. “All of it as contracted.”

“Blast your muddy eyes! What was that he said about a girl!” snapped. Howell. “You fool! Think I don't savvy Cantonese? Spit it out quick!”

The mate was too frightened to lie, as the swift shrillness of his answer tokened.

“A woman came in charge of the shipment, sir. That's all they know.”

“Tell them to send her over and be quick about it. Mr. Browne, be ready to check the cases that come aboard to the hatch aft! Never mind the stowage; Mr. McGregor will see to that. If any cases are broken, pitch 'em overboard and mark 'em off. I'll see to the No. 1 hold—you ready down there, Sing?”

“Aye, Cap'n,” came the steward's voice from the well-deck forward.

I stayed where I was. Howell had said to be ready, not to go below, and I was alert for such distinctions from him. Besides, there was no rush, for flares were being broken out and cargo would not come aboard soon. We had no searchlight, and no radio; I think the old hooker just came under the thousand-ton radio regulations. McGregor put out the ladder and then vanished aft, while Howell leaned over the rail and snapped orders at the men forward. I saw Stuart down there to handle the winches, as the lights broke out.

The two ships were drawing closer together; there was not even a groundswell, and they could come rail to rail without danger. It was a slow business, however, and a boat was coming over from the other craft. I was scarcely aware of it until she was under our ladder and an unfamiliar figure was mounting to the bridge—a woman.

“Captain Howell?” came her voice, as she came up to us in the darkness. It was a cool and self-contained voice, softly modulated and yet reaching. “I'm Miss Lui Tock. My father was taken suddenly ill and I came with the shipment at the last moment.”

“Humph! Glad to meet you,” said the skipper, tone belying words lustily enough. “Going back to S'pore with your craft, I suppose?”

“No, I'm going on to Kwangtung with you,” said Miss Lui.

“You'd better not. It's no joy trip!” said Howell. She laughed softly, a clear and whimsical little laugh.

“I'm forced to act as agent for my father and the company, Captain.” By her use of this word, I knew she had learned her English in America. An English-trained person would not have used the title alone. “There's too much at stake, you see. I have to do everything from paying you to making collection at the other end. I've brought along a small shipment of bullion, too, being sent north.”

“Oh!” said the skipper in a queer voice. “Oh! That explains it, then. Not a soul knew about your bullion, I suppose?”

“It's no secret, except from government,” she replied. “Of course, no one knew that your ship was involved.”

“Oh, not at all!” Howell was trying to be sarcastic. “My mate died half an hour ago, my supercargo died last night; cholera wiped out most of my crew and I had to replace 'em at Macassar. Fortunately or not, Mr. McGregor of the general offices was in Macassar, and he has a mate's ticket, so I pressed him into service. He's acting mate. You know him?”

“Yes,” said she.

It was a still, small word, if you get my meaning; the very restraint in it made it bulk large in the darkness. That woman spoke volumes in the one word. I think it startled Howell, tempted him toward explanations; but there was no time to waste. The other craft was alongside. Bumpers were out, lines passed, voices chattering. The skipper had to make up his mind quickly.

“You'd better not go with us,” he said. “You can leave things to me safely; for you, it's not safe at all.”

“We trust you perfectly,” she returned. “But I must go. There are things to do when we reach Kwangtung.”

“If, not when!” said Howell. “You're determined?”

“Certainly,” she returned. “Now, here are the papers. I've arranged everything, as you cabled. The shipment which Mr. McGregor took on will come aboard separately; that sent by your agent in Singapore is in our forward hold—separate invoices. I have the bullion in two suitcases. It's in my boat now.”

“Order it up,” said Howell.

He turned to me, and listened a moment as the woman went to the rail and called down. His hand fell on my arm.

“Sing's cabin has been thoroughly cleaned out,” he said quietly. “It's number five. You'll find it in shape for her. Tell her I'll send bedding as soon as we're off. Old Li's pretty busy just now. Then get aft to your job. Here's the invoice.”

It was, of course, not sheer chance alone which gave her the cabin of the late comprador. Those things are never sheer chance; they reach out and back and around in ever-widening circles. There's nothing so vast and terrible in the world as the causes of things, the tiny trifling causes reaching back to greater causes, reaching out ahead with effect after effect. Moses and Luther Burbank alike knew it, as their works show, but most of us disregard these things.

So with Miss Lui Tock's being given this cabin. If Mr. Johnson had died and been buried first, she would have taken his quarters, and all would have been changed. But she didn't; and there we were.

Howell introduced me to her, said he'd get her bullion in the safe first thing in the morning, and I went down with her and met the porters, and took her along to the cabin. When I switched on the light, I saw it was spick and span. The two grips were put in, and I had my first look at her. It was an eye-opener.

Why her voice had made me think of a honey blonde, I don't know, but it had. Nothing of the sort; she was short, dark, wore tailored tussore silk of light tan; her face was quite arresting, for it was scarcely Chinese at all. Under the dark, braided masses of hair her eyes were heavy-lidded, masterful, shrewd. She was pretty enough, and emanated that indefinable quality we call sex-appeal. Another word for character, I suppose. She was extremely feminine, but not annoyingly so. I put her down as perhaps two and twenty. She had been looking me over with the same curiosity, and now put out her hand, oddly.

“Thank you, Mr. Browne. I'm glad to find you aboard. If anything goes wrong, please have me called; but I think there's no need. Good night!”

“Good night!” I said, and departed.

Why the deuce, I wondered, was she glad to find me aboard? She spoke as if I had been an old friend, yet certainly she had never heard of me in her life, before tonight. It made me laugh to myself, the oddity of it all.

I got aft, descended to the well-deck, and found the work starting. The other craft, a good bit larger than the Wung Chow, was lined up alongside and her winches were beginning to rattle away merrily. So far as I could see, her crew was all Chinese. Probably Straits Chinese, like the girl—that name of Tock was a certainty.

A long cargo boom began swinging large, heavy cases the size of a piano box over to our deck; our tackle picked them up and lowered them into the hold. Stuart was up forward, and two of his Chinese were at the winches here, with McGregor commanding them somewhere in the darkness, behind the flare which was lighting our well-deck.

The invoice was made out both in English and Chinese. Every case had a number, also in both languages, painted front and back, and they had to be checked off on the invoice. It was simple enough. There were only thirty-two of them in all, and they could not be handled very quickly because of the care necessary in adjusting the slings. There was no occasion to obey the skipper's orders and heave any overboard; all were perfect.

Twenty-eight of the big cases had gone down. The next came over, and our men hooked the slings on our boom—that of the other craft would not reach—and it rose as our winch clanked away. Here again was accident or chance or destiny; I chose that instant to look up, for no particular reason, and actually saw the cable beginning to slack and run backward as the case was over me. I have no recollection to this day of the muscular action, but it must have been spasmodic, instinctive, due to every sense being alert. At all events I went over sidewise and rolled into the shadows.

It must have been frightfully close. Even before I struck the deck, I could hear the crash of the falling case. Relization of the peril stunned me for an instant, then, as I came to my feet, something hurtled through the air and thudded on the deck in front of the yellow flare. It was the Chinese who had been at the winch. He crawled up, and as he did so, Howell was down alongside him in a flying leap, and cursing. He flayed McGregor and the yellow men with his tongue, and flayed them properly in everything from Dutch to Cantonese. Then he saw me coming along.

“Hurt, Browne?” he snapped.

“No, it isn't damaged a particle,” I said, looking at the packing case. He stared at me for a moment, then chuckled.

“Watch your step, you poor innocent!” he said, and was gone.

That was all. Not until the case was in the air again and heading for the hatchway did I actually comprehend that this was no accident. Then I lolled back against the deck-house and lighted a cigaret to hide my nervousness. I was nervous, all right, after it was over. Was it McGregor, up above at the winch, or was it that yellow 2 dragging himself away with a split scalp? Or both of them?

No matter; it was over now, and I had learned my lesson. And how the skipper had showed up when least expected; how that Chinaman had been smashed down. All luck, of course, but luck's only a name for strange things, strange coordinations we don't rightly fathom.

Nothing else happened. The last case came over and went down. Booms and tackle were stowed; the men came up from below. McGregor passed me, catlike, and began getting the hatch-cover in place and the wedges knocked home. I went up to the bridge, and found the work forward was just completed also. There were no farewells. The lines were cast off, the engines rumbled, and the two ships headed away from each other over the glassy sea. The lights died.

Howell loomed up beside me with a sharp word. I handed him the invoice.

“All correct, sir. No damage.”

“Wasn't their fault,” he said. “2 you, watch yourself! I can't play nurse-maid all voyage. What'd I give you that gun for, you idiot? Shoot first and talk after. Better make a mistake than let the other chap make one. It's gone off well, very well; all stowed safe, the horizon clear, no suspicion—good! Get to sleep. See you today sometime.”

Dawn was coming into the sky, and we were heading north toward China.

III

IT WAS nearly noon when I turned out and found the old hooker wallowing along with no land in sight and a brisk windy sea tossing her through the sunlight, northward. Out on deck I encountered the yellow chap whose head was split, but he seemed to be quite oblivious of me. So did the rest of the crew, except the steward. They all knew, of course, that I had no actual standing as an officer. The mate, Mr. Johnson, I found, had been buried that morning.

Captain Howell, Stuart, Miss Lui Tock and I messed alone, which was pleasant enough. She was a bright one, that girl. Had been to college in America, too, and had twice the brains of most men you'd meet. She was from Singapore, it proved.

I was curious to know about this cargo of ours. It was easy to figure that she had brought it from Singapore in the other craft; and from her words with Howell when she came abroad, I knew we were taking it to Canton or parts adjacent. But why? Why should two ships do the work of one, in an extra third of the time involved.

Undoubtedly Howell scented my curiosity, and so perhaps did Stuart, who had a Scot's burr but no real accent, and was a bluff, likeable man. At all events, I was soon given more than an inkling of the whole business.

“I'll tell ye what,” Stuart led off solemnly, “I'll not be turning up my nose at a bit of silver, but there's one or two things I'd not do for any money.”

“What—piracy?” asked Miss Lui, with a laugh. Stuart inspected her stolidly.

“No, miss, there's worse than piracy, and that's running guns to the Bolshevik crowd in Kwangtung! I'd have no hand in such work. It's unchristian, it's going against nature.”

“Bosh!” said Howell. “You were filibustering in North China two years ago!”

“That's different,” said the chief. “I'm talking about running guns to the Canton Reds. Why, they've got Russians officering their army, I hear! Aye, red Bolsheviks from Moscow.”

Miss Lui leaned forward. Behind her glinting dark eyes was a trace of earnestness.

“You're not a Bolshevik, Mr. Stuart?”

“Heaven forbid!” he asserted. Yet I saw Howell's eyes twinkle.

“And you're not a Chinaman either,” said the girl, looking at him steadily. “But you have sense, Mr. Stuart. You know the situation in China today. Why have the Cantonese absorbed all of southern China until they're reaching out for Shanghai and Pekin? Not because they have Russian officers! The northern armies have as many or more, even have whole Russian legions of old Tsarist veterans. Not because they can get arms overland from Siberia—the northern armies can get them from Japan, and do get them by sea from Sweden, who isn't a party to the convention.”

“Well?” said Stuart dryly. “Why, then?”

“Because they've got something to fight for,” said the girl briskly. “I'm no Bolshevik, but I'm Chinese, and there are millions like me. For thousands of years we've had a symbol to fight for, an emperor. We got a republic, and lost all cohesion, because liberty is only a name; under liberty, we've had tyranny. All the war lords set up for themselves, or were puppets worked by strings. Then came the Red movement in Canton, and it can't be beaten! Not because it's red—that's mostly propaganda, mind—but because it's simply a cause to fight for. A symbol!”

Stuart opened his mouth to protest, but Howell broke in with a laugh.

“Right! Let's cut politics out. You're dead right, Miss Lui. The chief here has been drinking in all the pap that was fed him. Whew! Regular old war stuff, isn't it? Going all over the world, too. Well, the old world will wake up some day. Meantime, what's going on behind the arms convention? Rankest sort of rot. Everybody's running arms to their friends, and trying to stop any being run elsewhere, and that's the truth.”

“Who'd stop us?” I queried. Howell gave me a grin.

“Anybody, my son, anybody—we're not protected! We're not running 'em for the Japs, the British, or the French. Merely for ourselves and for the Chinese. And that's the worst sort of crime! Ethics be hanged. Miss Lui, or rather her father, is paying to have one lot of stuff shipped; I've bought the other lot, chiefly machine guns, and am shipping it on my own, and my chief interest lies in getting paid.”

“Aye,” said Stuart, giving him a shrewd look. “To let Chinese use them against white folks, aye!”

“Bosh!” I said. “Bosh, and you know it, chief! The only crowd who have any possible ethics are the Chinese. After all, it's their country.”

“Ye're a fool,” said Stuart dourly, and rose and went out.

“Yes, I'm afraid you're a fool, Browne,” said the skipper cheerfully, with a wink at Miss Lui. “There's the only logical standpoint in the China affair. Everybody who doesn't agree is a fool.”

She laughed, and it was a nice laugh to hear, ringing and musical.

“Quite correct, Captain! Do you think we'll be searched?”

Howell shook his head.

“Safe as a church, Miss Lui. All the available warships are up at Hankow, Canton, or other points that way, or else in a hurry to get there. If you made arrangements as I had cabled your father—”

“Exactly as you cabled,” she broke in. “Two days before I left Singapore we had a radio from our friends in Canton. You'll be met at the point desired.”

“Then forget any danger from that source,” said Howell decisively. Miss Lui leaned her head to one side and looked at him.

“Hm! Are there other sources?”

“Look at this crew of mine and you'd think so,” said Howell. “My mate gone; good old Sing gone, new men from stoke-hold to quartermasters—huh! If they've got wind of your bullion, then stand by for trouble. You've never seen piracy, have you?”

She nodded.

“Yes. I was aboard the Jade last year. I was brought in as translator.”

“We're not French,” said Howell grimly, then excused himself and left.

There was food for thought in all this. The Jade piracy was a famous matter. It took place in February of 1926, when the French steamer was calmly seized, run into Bias Bay and frisked. No one was hurt; the thing was done with absolute precision and good humor, and a bullion shipment removed intact. The pirate chief even told the French skipper that this was their sixth job, that they operated one a year, and it paid. But, as Howell had said, we were not French. If our precious outfit started trouble, it would not be bloodless.

Nothing occurred to justify all these piratical forebodings, however. With perfect weather backing her, the Wung Chow slithered and pounded along all that day and half the next, without incident, except that one of the Chinese forward was sick. It proved nothing bad, however.

Howell had things running like clockwork from the start, despite his short officer list. I found that we had thirteen natives aboard, including the steward Li, but this caused nobody any worry. We might have included McGregor to make fourteen, at a pinch.

“Odd how things work out, isn't it?” said Howell to me, the next evening, as we smoked on the bridge and watched the empty sea. I think he was keeping out of any steamer lane for his own reasons.

“Depends,” I said. “What things?”

“Coincidences. Here Miss Lui was aboard that craft last year—the Jade. Well, our late comprador Sing was aboard her, too. He was a bank shroff then. There's an odd point of contact established. They turn up all the time. If we knew everything about every one aboard here, I'd wager we could establish a dozen points of contact.”

I laughed.

“Especially in our ancestry—McGregor, for instance! By the way, I've been wondering why he should be suspected of anything, skipper. He arranged this shipment, didn't he? And he's in the company.”

Howell only shrugged and muttered something about blasted Eurasians, then went to look at the compass. Evidently he had no definite basis for his suspicion or he would have come straight out with it before this; McGregor was too sly for him, perhaps.

THE NEXT morning was working along toward noon when I met Miss Lui out on deck, walking, and I knew right off something had happened, merely by the look of her. We passed the time of day.

“Well,” I said, “what is it?”

“What is what?” she demanded, her eyes widening on me.

“That's what I want to know,” I said, laughing. “You look as though you'd just seen a ghost. What's up?”

“I had a fright,” she confessed, and said no more.

“Maybe,” I said. “You're not the frightening kind, I should say. A rat in your cabin?”

She only dimpled up in a smile, and then turned to Captain Howell, who was coming up.

“Good morning,” she responded to his greeting. “Captain, you remember we spoke about the Jade piracy? I told you I was the translator between the pirate chief and the French captain.”

“Yes,” said. Howell, with a nod. “Everybody's heard about that rascal, too the cold nerve of him! What was his name—Wen something?”

“Wang Shui,” she corrected. “Of the Kwangsi Wang family. By the way, the steward says that I have the cabin of your former supercargo, Sing and that he was on the Jade last year, too.”

“Yes,” said Howell.

His birdlike gaze probed hard at her. Both he and I sensed something extraordinary in her manner, something running about and leaping excitedly beneath her cool and calm exterior.

“Have you time to come down to my cabin for a moment?” she asked, and seemed to hang on his reply.

“Why, certainly!” said Howell. “Come along, Browne. What's up, Miss Lui?”

“Perhaps my imagination—you'll see,” she returned, with that queer elusive smile.

We accompanied her to the cabins beneath the bridge, and to Number Five. When she threw open the door and we entered, it showed little signs of her occupancy. She turned to Howell.

“Will you lie down on the bunk, please? The lower one.”

There were two berths against the steel wall to the left. There was another sign of her American training, the fact that she took the lower berth, and not the upper one, as an Englishwoman would have done. It made me smile, at the moment.

“Lie down?” said Howell. “Why—I suppose so.”

He got on the bunk, put his feet on the iron rail, and winked at me.

“All right, I'm down!” he said cheerfully. “What's next on the program? Anesthetic?”

“No, grease marks, apparently,” said Miss Lui. “Look along the wall at your left and see if you can make out anything.”

I looked at the white wall, and it was blank. Howell turned his head and looked. His cap fell off and he groped for it. Then his arm froze. His eyes fastened on something I could not see, and he frowned slightly. The slanting light from the port must have showed up something otherwise invisible.

“Hello! That is queer,” he said. “Looks as though some beggar had made marks with his finger—Chinese writing, what? Ideographs?”

“Naturally,” she returned. “Your late comprador, Sing, was Chinese—”

Her words trailed off, she gestured slightly, and waited. Howell whistled softly.

I stared at the wall, thrilling to the realization of it. Here was that man I had never seen except when at the point of death, that comprador, Sing, poisoned, probably knowing himself done for, unable to speak. He had lain in this bunk and had written words there on the wall with a greasy finger, invisible writing. Why? If he could have done that, then surely he could have left a visible message. It looked preposterous.

Howell turned his head, swung around and put his feet to the floor. His eyes were as if lighted by flashes of inner light.

“By the gods!” he said. “You know, it looks silly, dashed silly—eh? More behind it. Old Sing couldn't talk, but he could mark on the wall, with his finger. He did it two or three times by the looks of things there. Why no marks? He was trying to show somebody—ah! It was Johnson! That beggar could read Chinese and speak it. He and Sing were good pals. So that's why Johnson was knocked off too? Hi there, Li! Come in here!”

The steward had just passed the open door. He came inside and grinned.

“Did Sing give you any message or try to?” demanded Howell. Li grimaced, bobbed his head, and spattered out some Cantonese. Miss Lui translated for my benefit.

“He can't read or write, and Sing couldn't talk. So Johnson came and Sing wrote words on the wall. Johnson looked excited and started to shout—he had been drinking already. Then he tried to talk with Sing. Li says he went away and left them. Johnson came forward and spoke to some of the men and then went back to his cabin.”

It was rather incoherent and aimless and led us nowhere. The mate had been drinking, and that clapped a stopper on the whole business, ruined the comprador's dying effort, probably caused Johnson's death, too.

Howell lighted a cigaret.

“Alcohol costs a lot,” he observed. “Well never know what that message was now— Oh! So that's it, eh? You can read that invisible writing?”

Miss Lui was smiling, and now she nodded.

“Yes. You see how things work out, fit together—how the scattered pieces dovetail? Sing was aboard the Jade and undoubtedly remembered those pirates. He wrote a name here on the wall. Johnson was excited and shouted it out, then questioned some of the men; they all heard him, all knew Sing had told him that name. By the time he went back to his cabin and his liquor, the poison had been slipped into it. You see?”

“Aye, miss,” said Howell. “I see—all except the nubbin. What's the name?”

“Wang Shui. The leader of the Jade piracy. He's probably aboard here with his men and Sing had recognized him.”

IV

IF MISS LUI was playing for dramatic effect, she sure got it.

Unless you had been out in those waters, you might miss the point. For a year or so, every one in the east had been talking of Wang Shui. After taking the Jade, Wang Shui and his men had talked coolly enough about their past exploits, even naming two of their former prizes, the Ling Chow and the Fung Wah. Then, although fully known, they had dropped clear out of sight with their loot.

Their program of one ship a year, their entire precision about the job, their cool nerve and assurance, all combined to lend Wang Shui's outfit a halo of romance, and strictly business-like romance, too. They were efficient rascals, and efficiency is so rare as to usually bring a halo of some kind. The many Chinese-owned ships, which carried only enough British officers to get Hong Kong registration, were so worked up about it that they had nearly come to comply with the Piracy Regulations—almost, but not quite. Every one in the Far East was conjecturing about where and when Wang Shui would fall on his next victim.