Little Foreign Devil 2010 Chapter 22

8/3/2019 Little Foreign Devil 2010 Chapter 22

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/little-foreign-devil-2010-chapter-22 1/9

300

GUI XIANG WAS RIGHT ON TRACK about the Ameri-cans pulling out. They made it of ficial; they were end-ing their occupation, scotching for once and for all thespate of rumors about a new concession coming intobeing, an American one, complete with garrison, lawcourts, clubs, schools. For days their decision was allthe talk at Tientsin Club, once strictly exclusive, nowthrown open with fees waived to all ex-internees. Sothere was I at the bulletin board, shoulder to shoulder

with the elite, reading the latest Reuters and United

Press despatches; or at the communal lunch table in theglittering dining room, breaking bread with taipans.

It wasn’t the happiest of times for legitimate clubmembers. Faces grew bleaker by the day. One lunch I

was seated beside ‘ Moo-jiang’ Smitty’, Weihsien’s jovialcarpenter, now no longer jovial, no longer a carpenter,and no longer ‘Smitty’. He had reverted to ArchibaldAlistair Smith, Esq, Managing Director, Snelgrove Smith& Co, Tientsin’s largest wool packing plant. I don’tremember his face being beetroot in Weihsien; it wascertainly that now. Purple even. All through lunch hefussed and fumed: “Did not the Foreign Of fice specifi-

cally ask us to stay behind to protect British interests?And what was our reward for staying? Eh? Three yearsin a filthy prison camp! And little did we realize while

we languished there what 10 Downing Street had instore for us . . .”



301

A fellow taipan, taking his place at the table, inter- jected: “What’s your beef today, Archie?”

With eyes aflame and chaps quivering, Mr ArchibaldAlistair Smith aimed an accusatory finger at the man.“The bloody Anglo-Chinese Agreement of 1943, that’s

what! The snuf fing out of our livelihoods by the strokeof a pen.”

“Hold on to your hat, Archie. The agreement canalways be renegotiated. Can’t you see the deadlier,more immediate problem we face?” That came fromGeorge Wallis, camp baker in Weihsien, now waitingto be called back to his desk at Tientsin’s prestigiousFairchild & Co.

“You’ve lost your marbles George. No problem canbe deadlier. That infamous agreement of which I speakcalls for Britain to relinquish the concession’s assetsaccumulated over the years by municipal taxes paidby you and by me, and not by the bloody Court of St

James. And what about the Crown Lessees Fund whicheverybody and his uncle knows was created by theBMC to compensate us when our sub leases run outin 1964? The powers-that-be have gone and signed itover to the bloody Kuomintang. And now those buggershave declared the leases null and void. They’ve ruinedus, Georgie me boy, ruined us utterly!”

“Not me, Archie, not me. I’m not one bit affected bythat monkey business. I don’t own an inch of property.

But I’m personally ruined all the same. Galloping infla-tion has done me in.” He waved a bank note throughthe air. “This here thousand dollar note is nothing butsmall change. What you could buy for ten thousand

yesterday will cost you a lakh by the end of the week.My total savings at Chartered Bank wouldn’t cover arickshaw ride to Morling’s Corner!”

“All the more fool, George, for keeping your savingsin local currency.”

“How was I to know . . .”While the two hammered away, I reflected on my

own little encounter with runaway inflation. It began

with a notice appearing on the club’s bulletin boardadvising Britons of cash grants being handed out at theconsulate. All one had to do was show one’s passport.Literally, money for the taking. At the consulate, after



302

a two hour wait in line, a clerk handed me a form on which I had to fill in name, age, occupation, the namesof three references, and the proposed method of repay-ment. Twenty minutes later, with the princely sum of one hundred thousand dollars bundled under my arm,I hailed a rickshaw. As we progressed past Chase Bank,someone on the front steps called out my name. It was

Jimmy Winslow of all people! We were more than pass-ing acquaintances. In Weihsien we were teammates onKitchen Two softball team.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Des Power, our lefty first base-man! What you up to these days?”

“Nothing much. I’m getting itchy feet.”“I’m skeedaddling myself soon as my replacement

arrives. Say, you work for a stock broker don’t you?”“That’s right, Doney & Company, but their doors

are locked tight. My boss, Major Ridler, who was in-terned in Lunghua, is on a ship bound for England. MrGilmore, his partner, is too old and infirm to re-startthe business.”

“How are you managing to survive?”“I just got a hundred-thousand-dollar grant from the

British Government.”“Local currency?”“Yep.”

“Chicken feed! Play money! We’re dishing it out toall comers. You can have as much as you can carry.

Follow me.”I followed him through the bank’s marble foyer and

into a strong room at the back. It was stacked to theceiling with crisp ten-thousand-dollar bank notes.



303

“The Japanese left the stuff. It’ll be worthless in notime. Take what you want. You don’t have to sign fora penny of it.”

After loading the rickshaw to the gunnels, I calledout: “Say, Jimmy, do you know you’ve made me a mil-lionaire?”

He threw his head back, laughing. “Play money, myfriend. Only good for Monopoly.”

Our home (seenhere) on SydneyRoad came tolife the moment

Tai-tai steppedthrough the frontdoor. It was likeold times to hearher voice ring-ing through thehouse, supervis-ing the cleaners,

painters, plumbers. We certainly needed plumbers. Two of Tientsin’s ablest took a whole day to clear thepipes clogged with human hair. It took all of a week forthe smell of new paint to give way to that old familiarmingling of kitchen odors and furniture polish. Andonce again, mahjong tiles click-clacked in the drawingroom. Who else at the mahjong table but that ebullient

foursome: Ilse Von Brunow, Ruby Hawkins, Philo Cox,Gracie Lambert?

For days I waited to catch Tai-tai alone; I had to tellher what had to be told.

“You should be thinking of selling out.”“Selling out! Have you lost your senses? Why should

I sell out?”“The US Marines will soon be leaving. The Chinese are

going to send us packing the minute that happens.”“Don’t you believe a word of it. A captain in the Third

Amphibious Corps told Mrs O’Connor they are goingto leave a regiment behind to protect American and

British interests.”“I heard that at Tientsin Club. I heard also that the

American Consul has categorically denied it. Why do you think those families are leaving, the Travers-Smiths,the Cooks, the Marshalls?”



304

“They are going onhome leave, that’s all.Pierre Travers-Smithtold me he has everyintention of returningin May to renovate hisPeitaiho bungalow.Hongkong ShanghaiBank is open for busi-ness. Also Chartered

Bank. Grammar School is enrolling students for thespring term. Everything will be back to normal, just

you wait and see.”“ Joe Grandon thinks the Chinese will have us out by

the end of 1947 the latest.”“Stuff and nonsense. Joe Grandon doesn’t know what

he’s talking about. Someone should advise him theBritish army has re-occupied Hong Kong, that they’llsoon be sending a battalion up here as they’ve alwaysdone. Ilse Von Brunow told me the Russians are in PortArthur and Dairen. It’s just like old times. I’m going tostart looking for linen and furniture. Jim, Pat, Brian,

Jocelyn have all, by the grace of God, survived the war.I’m going to get the home readied for their return.”

“Are you so sure they want to come back?”“Of course they want to come back. They belong here.

You belong here.”

“Don’t you think they’ve had enough of war? Why would they want to get mixed up in China’s war?”

“Chiang Kai Shek and Mao Tse Tung will make peace just as Wu Pei Fu and Chang Tso Lin used to do everyChinese New Year.”

“Chiang and Mao are no warlords. Whoever wins willkick us out.”

“Never on your life!”“I won’t stay. I’m going.”“Go then. You always were a loner, a wanderer. The

sooner you get that silly roving bug out of your systemthe better. You’ll be back. I know you will. I’ll keep your

room ready for you.”I rode Slava’s bike to the consulate. The pink-cheeked

man at the counter, probably fresh out of Hong Kong,listened to my request, scanned my passport, picked up



305

the phone, spoke a few words, then wrote out a travel warrant. And as he did so, he mumbled, disinterest-edly: “There’s an American LST leaving from the Bundtomorrow morning sharp at seven. It’ll take you to HMS Alacrity anchored at Taku. The Alacrity is on its way toShanghai. You can get a berth to the UK from there.”

Tomorrow! Sharp at seven! The full impact of whatI was doing hit me square between the eyes. I neverdreamt that one quick phone call could decide some-thing so momentous, so final. Lightheadedly, I forcedout the words:

“And whereabouts on the Bund will I find theLST?”

“Behind Astor House Hotel.”

I am up at first light. At the front door Tai-tai showsno emotion. “See you in Peitaiho next summer,” are herparting words. No rickshaw in sight, I pick up my bat-tered suitcase and start off on foot. The raw Mongolian

wind cuts through me like a knife. I spy an unoccupiedrickshaw at the curb bordering Empire Theatre, but nosign of the coolie. Treading my way past D’Arc’s Hotel, Itake a fond last look at the mellowed brick façade, thepride and joy of my grandparents back at the turn of the century. Along Meadows Road the wind whips up

half a gale. I sink my neck into my overcoat collar. AndI stay hunched like a tortoise even as I pay my respectsto Gordon Hall, to the Tingzi, to the Cenotaph. Threeblasts from a ship’s horn, and I break into a run. Noneed to panic; the dark-gray LST is as frozen in place



306

as the Astor House itself. My teeth are chattering, myears and cheeks blue by the time I mount the gangplankand show my papers. An of ficer directs me to a messat the stern where a dozen passengers sit huddled onbenches. A fuzzy-faced sailor hands me a doughnut anda steaming mug of coffee. Is there no end to Americangenerosity?

A metallic voice from a crackling loudspeaker, thenthree blasts from a horn, and the vessel casts off, cut-ting through the surface ice along the river’s edge.Reaching the center channel, she swings her bow andheads downstream for Taku. In no time the brick andconcrete skyline gives way to desolate mud flats. I amonly vaguely aware of the throbbing engines, the of ficers’ commands, the crew’s responses, the chitter-chatter of fellow passengers. My mind is on Tai-tai, Tony, Betty,Gui Xiang, Yi-jie, Charlie, Aliosha, Murat, Achmet. Oneconsolation, I have surmounted what I dread most – theonrush of childish tears.

“We’re at Taku,” someone says. I go outside to look.Nothing much changed, the same scattering of mudhuts, the same derelict wharf; and seawards, the samecollection of junks, lighters, tugs, tramps.

“There’s one of the old forts,” a white-haired passengerindicates an earthen mound shaped like an upturnedbasin. “In early days we used to romp freely over thoseslopes. Later we were chased off by silly Chinese, shout-



307

ing ‘ Foreign Devils out, Foreign Devils out’.”I gaze at the primitive earthworks. I marvel at the te-

nacity of the medieval Manchu warriors who confoundedthe pride of the Royal Navy, who repulsed Lord Elgin’sAnglo-French storm-troopers, and who, when taken frombehind, fought to the last man on that fateful day inhistory eighty-eight years back when the ancient Mingcity of Tientsin fell to the foreign invader.

The LST is hardly out of the silted river mouth whenshe runs head-on into the fresh chop of the Po Hai Gulf.

The wind whistles a mournful dirge. Spray stings myface. “Hold tight,” a sailor calls out. I grab onto the rail

with both hands. Smack! Bang! Wallop! We are tossedabout like a matchbox in a torrent. Surely we can’t takemuch more. Surely the Yankee skipper will turn backinto the estuary. But nothing of the kind. He braves itout, and the farther we head into the gulf the angrierthe sea, some waves shooting us so high the propellersclatter in empty air before we come crashing down ina gut-wrenching free fall. “Whoop Whoop Whoop” goesa ship’s siren. It’s the Alacrity, alongside, doing thedance macabre, leaping and plunging hopelessly out of sync with the LST. Hoarse shouts and flashing lights.Lines coil through the air. In the split second that thetwo hulls cross, a passenger is hurled from Americanto English hands. When my turn comes, a brute of anEnglish tar, takes one look at my GI field jacket and

hollers: “Blimey, a bloody Yank, toss the bugger back!”I claw frantically at his duffel coat. I cry out: “British!I’m British!” His steel-blue eyes penetrate mine. Thenhe barks: “Orl right, tyke the blighter below!”

A nauseating amalgam of diesel fumes, engine grease,and wet paint turns my stomach. Sickly green-tingedlight plays on the constant comings and goings of crew members worming their way through the clutterof mess tables, lockers, hammocks, stanchions. I amcramped in a tiny space with four Jack Tars sippinglip-scalding unsweetened tea. The pitching and yawing,the sudden weightlessness followed by irresistible pulls

of gravity send alarming spasms of queasiness throughme. My mouth fills with watery saliva. The tars’ eyesare on me, waiting for my comedy act – the helplessconvulsing spewing up of my breakfast. Purposely I



308

let the enamel mug scald the tips of my fingers. I takeenormous breaths. I grit my teeth. The sternest of thefour keeps his eyes peeled on me while he addressesa messmate: “ ‘ookey, as you was syeing, them putridbodies you found in the ‘old, was they six dyes or sevendyes dead? Didn’t you sye the stench myde the old manpuke over the side . . . ?”

I do the sailors out of their fun. “When do we getsome grub?” I ask.

“You’ve bin a matelot before,” the one called ‘ookeysnorts huf fily.

I shrug my shoulders. “When do we weigh an-chor?”

“We’ve already done so. We’re moving. Can’t you feelthe motion?”

“I think I’ll go up and take one last look.”“Careful of your step, me ole China.”I grab onto a rail on the sheltered side of the deck.

A signal light is blinking in the darkness. A sailor on watch turns to me. “It’s a Yank wishing us happy new year and best of luck for 1946.”

My eyes sweep towards the land, my land, my moth-erland, my zu guo , as the Chinese say. One by one theorangey lights on the shoreline fade into the black void.I think I see a glimmer, faint and solitary. I strain myeyes to hold it. But it too is gone. The dark and broodingnight has consumed it, just as it has consumed some

vital essence deep down in the innermost part of me,and I am left to draw solace from that ancient saying:"Ou duan si lian – the lotus root snaps, but the fibresremain intact . . ."

Little Foreign Devil 2010 Chapter 22

Documents

Transcript of Little Foreign Devil 2010 Chapter 22