China and the West

Norris, Frank. Moran of the Lady Letty : a story of adventure off the California coast. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday & MacClure, 1898).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/321/321.txt.
In the mile or so of shipping that stretched from the docks where the China steamships landed, down past the ferry slips and on to Meiggs's Wharf, every maritime nation in the world was represented…
In the forward part of the schooner a Chinaman in brown duck was mixing paint…
As Wilbur came on deck he saw the crew of the schooner hurrying forward, six of them, Chinamen every one, in brown jeans and black felt hats…Wilbur saw the Chinamen ranging themselves about what he guessed was the windlass in the schooner's bow. He followed and took his place among them, grasping one of the bars. "Break down!" came the next order. Wilbur and the Chinamen obeyed, bearing up and down upon the bars till the slack of the anchor-chain came home and stretched taut and dripping from the hawse-holes…
She was very dirty and smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were Chinamen; there was no mate. But the cook--himself a Chinaman--who appeared from time to time at the door of the galley, a potato-masher in his hand, seemed to have some sort of authority over the hands…
Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke pigeon English fairly. Of the balance of the crew--the five Chinamen--Wilbur could make nothing…
He "lay out" as best he could and cast off the gaskets—he knew barely enough of yachting to understand an order here and there--and by the time he was back on the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were at the jib halyard and hoisting away…
As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of the jib…
He descended the fo'c'sle hatch. The Chinamen were already there, sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bottom of the ladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can. Charlie brought in supper--stewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and a wooden kit--and the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-knives and from tin plates…A single reeking lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner over the centre of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly scene--the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork and holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the rolling of the boat…
"I'm not hungry enough for that just now," he told himself. "Say, Jim," he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge, "say, what kind of boat is this? What you do--where you go?"…
He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost out of sight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and commanded, "Ease off y'r fore an' main sheets."…
The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. The men trooped forward again…
Why was I brought aboard, why are there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do, and how long are we going to be gone? Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from his mustache. "Well," he said, resuming his pipe, "it's like this, son. This ship belongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in Frisco. Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business. We go down here twice a year off Cape Sain' Lucas, Lower California, an' fish for blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch 'em. We get the livers of these an' try out the oil, an' we bring back that same oil, an' the Chinamen sell it all over San Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy?...
The Chinamen went about the decks wearing but their jeans and blouses…
During most of his watches Wilbur was engaged in painting the inside of the cabin, door panels, lintels, and the few scattered moldings; and toward the middle of the first week out, when the "Bertha Millner" was in the latitude of Point Conception, he and three Chinamen, under Kitchell's directions, ratlined down the forerigging and affixed the crow's nest upon the for'mast. The next morning, during Charlie's watch on deck, a Chinaman was sent up into the crow's nest, and from that time on there was always a lookout maintained from the masthead…
On the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium…
A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory's bow and alternately conning the ocean's surface and looking back to the Chinaman standing on the schooner's masthead…
"Sing!" he shouted, as the Chinaman clambered away like a bewildered ape; "sing a little more…"Him velly sick," hazarded the Chinaman from the ratlines, adding a sentence in Chinese to Charlie…
It was impossible to resist the excitement of the situation, its novelty--the high crow's nest of the schooner, the keen salt air, the Chinamen grouped far below…
The Chinamen at the oars of the dory, with that extraordinary absence of curiosity which is the mark of the race, did not glance a second time at the survivor of the "Lady Letty's"
misadventure…
In the cabin the six doors kept up a continuous ear-shocking fusillade, as though half a dozen men were fighting with revolvers; from without, down the open skylight, came the sing-song talk of the Chinamen and the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by side…
Wilbur returned to the schooner with the two Chinamen, leaving Kitchell alone on the bark…
"That's the kind of man I have to deal with," muttered Wilbur. "It's encouraging, and there's no one to talk to. Not much help in a Chinaman and a crazy girl in a man's oilskins…
The Chinamen cowered to the decks, grasping at cleats, stays, and masts…
The "Bertha Millner's" Chinese crew huddled forward, talking wildly, pointing and looking in a bewildered fashion over the sides…
She had looked squarely at Wilbur from under her scowl, and had said briefly and in a fine contralto voice, that he had for the first time noted: "I berth aft, in the cabin; you and the Chinaman forward. Understand?"…
Moran had only forestalled Wilbur's intention; while after her almost miraculous piece of seamanship in the rescue of the schooner, Charlie and the Chinese crew accorded her a respect that was almost superstitious…
Charlie, who was at the wheel, spoke a sentence in Chinese, and one of the hands drew his knife across the halyards and brought the distress signal to the deck…
The odd conclave assembled about Kitchell's table--the club-man, the half-masculine girl in men's clothes, and the Chinaman. The conference was an angry one, Wilbur and Moran insisting that they be put aboard the steamship, Charlie refusing with calm obstinacy. "I have um chin-chin with China boys las' nigh'. China boy heap flaid, no can stop um steamship. Heap flaid too much talkee-talkee. No stop; go fish now; go fish chop-chop. Los' heap time; go fish. I no savvy sail um boat, China boy no savvy sail um boat. I tink um you savvy (and he pointed to Moran)...
"China boy like you heap pretty big," said Charlie to Moran, as he went out. "You savvy sail um boat all light; wanta you fo' captain. But," he added, suddenly dropping his bland passivity as though he wore a mask, and for an instant allowing the wicked malevolent Cantonese to come to the surface, "China boy no likee funnee business, savvy?" Then with a smile of a Talleyrand he disappeared. Moran and Wilbur were helpless for the present. They were but two against seven Chinamen. They must stay on board, if the coolies wished it; and if they were to stay it was a matter of their own personal safety that the "Bertha Millner" should be properly navigated…
For two days previous the Chinese hands had been getting out the deck-tubs, tackles, gaffs,
spades, and the other shark-fishing gear that had been stowed forward…
Another Chinaman stood by with a long-handled gaff, hooked out the purple-black liver, brought it over the side, and dropped it into one of the deck-tubs…
Hardly a half minute passed that one of the four Chinamen that were fishing did not signal a catch, and Charlie and Jim were kept busy with spade and gaff…Charlie disappeared in the galley, supper was cooked, and eaten upon deck under the conflagration of the sunset; the lights were set, the Chinamen foregathered in the fo'c'stle head, smoking opium, and by eight o'clock the routine of the day was at an end…
They regained the schooner toward five o'clock, to find the Chinamen perplexed and mystified…
"No savvy," said Charlie. "No likee, no likee. China boy tink um heap funny, too much heap funny."…
He could see the bowsprit moving upward from star to star. Still the schooner lifted; objects on deck began to slide aft; the oil in the deck-tubs washed over; then, as there came a wild scrambling of the Chinese crew up the fo'c'stle hatch, she settled again gradually at first, then, with an abrupt lurch that almost threw him from his feet, regained her level…
A watch was set, the Chinamen sent below, and until daybreak, when Charlie began to make a clattering of tins in the galley as he set about preparing breakfast…
The shark were plentiful here and the fishing went forward again as before. Certain of these shark were hauled aboard, stunned by a blow on the nose, and their fins cut off.The Chinamen packed these fins away in separate kegs. Eventually they would be sent to China…
The Chinamen swarmed up the hatch-way, voluble and shrill. Again the "Bertha Millner" lifted and sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering like reeds, the timbers groaning aloud with the strain…
Ridden with all manner of nameless Oriental superstitions, it was evident that the Chinamen preferred any hazard of fortune to remaining longer upon the schooner…
The Chinamen had left plenty of provisions on board, and Moran cooked breakfast…
"Right," she answered; adding upon the moment: "Huh! more Chinamen; the thing is alive with coolies; she's a junk."… I've heard of them along this coast--heard our Chinamen speak of them…
Her crew were Chinamen; but such Chinamen! The coolies of the "Bertha Millner" were pampered and effete in comparison…
"I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will think of this?" said Wilbur, looking shoreward, where the deserters could be seen gathered together in a silent, observing group…
They were unlike any Chinamen he had ever seen--hideous to a degree that he had imagined impossible in a human being…
Moran and Wilbur kept to the quarter-deck, always within reach of the huge cutting-in spades, but the Chinese beach-combers were too elated over their prize to pay them much attention…
And indeed the dead monster proved a veritable treasure-trove. By the end of the day he had been triced up to the foremast, and all hands straining at the windlass had raised the mighty head out of the water. The Chinamen descended upon the smooth, black body, their bare feet
sliding and slipping at every step. They held on by jabbing their knives nto the hide as glacier-climbers do their ice-picks. The head yielded barrel after barrel of oil and a fair quantity of bone. The blubber was taken aboard the junk, minced up with hatchets, and run into casks. Last of all, a Chinaman cut a hole through the "case," and, actually descending into the inside of the head, stripped away the spermaceti (clear as crystal), and packed it into buckets, which were hauled up on the junk's deck. The work occupied some two or three days. During this time the "Bertha Millner" was keeled over to nearly twenty degrees by
the weight of the dead monster. However, neither Wilbur nor Moran made protest. The Chinamen would do as they pleased; that was said and signed. And they did not release the schooner until the whale had been emptied of oil and blubber, spermaceti and bone. At length, on the afternoon of the third day, the captain of the junk, whose name was Hoang, presented himself upon the quarter-deck. He was naked to the waist, and his bare brown torso was gleaming with oil and sweat. His queue was coiled like a snake around his neck, his hatchet thrust into his belt…
The three principals came to a settlement with unprecedented directness. Like all Chinamen, Hoang was true to his promises, and he had already set apart three and a half barrels of spermaceti, ten barrels of oil, and some twenty pounds of bone as the schooner's share in the
transaction…
"This ship's mine," cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. Wilbur followed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the pair…
Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumped forward, and Moran's fist met him in the face and brought him to his knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glinted over his head…
Wilbur, dressed in Chinese jeans and blouse, with Chinese wicker sandals on his bare feet, sat with his back against the whale's skull, smoking quietly…
Charlie did not even follow the direction of her gesture, and from this very indifference Wilbur guessed that it was precisely because of the beach-combers that the Machiavellian Chinaman had wished to treat with his old officers…
"China boy heap plenty much sick. Two boy velly sick. I tink um die pretty soon to-molla…
Charlie rose. "I go back. I tell um China boy what you say 'bout liver pill. Bime-by I come back."…
The deserting Chinamen huddled around Charlie, drawing close, as if finding comfort in the feel of each other's elbows. "No can tell," answered Charlie. "Him shake, then lif' up all the same as we. Bime-by too much lif' up; him smash all to--Four-piecee Chinamen dlown."…
"No savvy; no can tell. Him try catch um schooner sure. Him velly bad China boy. See Yup China boy, velly bad. I b'long Sam Yup. Savvy?'!...
"Look here, Charlie," she said, turning to the Chinaman. "If the beach-combers take the schooner--the 'Bertha Millner'--from us we'll be left to starve on this beach."…
"I go talkee-talk to China boy," said Charlie, coming up. For about five minutes the Chinamen conferred together, squatting in a circle on the beach…
They were examining this armament and Moran was suggesting a plan of attack, when
Hoang, the leader of the beach-combers, and one other Chinaman appeared some little distance below them on the beach…
In that whirl of swift action Wilbur could reconstruct but two brief pictures: the Chinaman,
Hoang's companion, flying like one possessed along the shore; Hoang himself flung headlong into the arms of the "Bertha's" coolies, and Moran, her eyes blazing, her thick braids flying, brandishing her fist as she shouted at the top of her deep voice, "We've got you, anyhow!" They had taken Hoang prisoner, whether by treachery or not, Wilbur did not exactly know; and, even if unfair means had been used, he could not repress a feeling of delight and satisfaction as he told himself that in the very beginning of the fight that was to follow he and his mates had gained the first advantage…
"Now you're going to talk," she cried to Hoang, as the bound Chinaman sat upon the beach, leaning his back against the great skull. "Charlie, ask him if they saved the ambergris when the junk went down--if they've got it now?" Charlie put the question in Chinese, but the beach-comber only twinkled his vicious eyes upon them and held his peace…
The Chinaman who had been sent aboard the schooner returned, carrying a
long, rather coarse-grained file. Moran took it from him. "Now," she said, standing in front of Hoang, "I'll give you one more chance. Answer me. Did you bring off the ambergris, you beast, when your junk sank? Where is it now? How many men have you? What arms have you got? Have your men got a rifle?--Charlie, put that all to him in your lingo, so as to make sure that he understands. Tell him if he don't talk I'm going to make him very sick." Charlie put the questions in Chinese, pausing after each one. Hoang held his peace…
He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his own capture had delayed their plans…
They neither moved nor spoke. The silence and absolute lack of motion on the part of these small, half-naked Chinamen, with their ape-like muzzles and twinkling eyes, was ominous…
The Chinese on either side had begun exchanging insults; the still, hot air of the tropic dawn was vibrant with the Cantonese monosyllables tossed back and forth like tennis-balls over the low sand rampart. The thing was degenerating into a farce--the "Bertha's" Chinamen would not fight…
The "Bertha's" Chinamen were all running forward, three of them well in advance of the others…
The Chinaman sprang to his feet again, but Wilbur was at him in an instant, feeling instinctively that his chance was to close with his man, and so bring his own superior weight and strength to bear… This was fighting at last, and there within arm's length were men grappling and gripping and hitting one another, each honestly striving to kill his fellow--Chinamen all, fighting in barbarous Oriental fashion with nails and teeth when the knife or
hatchet failed…
As Wilbur and Moran came around the cabin they saw the "Bertha Millner's" Chinamen in a group, not far from the water's edge, reassembled after the fight--panting and bloody, some of them bare to the belt, their weapons still in their hands…
"We'll get back to the 'Bertha' now and put to sea as soon as we can catch the tide. I'll send Jim and two of the other men across in the dory with Charlie. The rest of us will go around by the shore. We've got to have a chin-chin with Hoang, if he don't get loose aboard there and fire the boat before we can get back…
In accordance with Wilbur's orders, Charlie was carried aboard the dory; which, with two Chinamen at the oars, and the ambergris stowed again into the cuddy, at once set off for the schooner…
Wilbur allowed the Chinamen three or four hours' rest… Wilbur and Moran sought out Hoang, whom they found as they had left him--bound upon the floor of the cabin…
"It doesn't look like a place for a Tong row with Chinese pirates, though, does it?" he said; but even as he spoke the words, he guessed that that was not what he meant…
Hoang did not readily recover his "loss of face." The "Bertha's" Chinamen would have nothing to do with this member of a hostile Tong; and the humiliated beach-comber kept almost entirely to himself, sitting on the forecastle-head all day long, smoking his sui-yen-hu and brooding silently to himself…
"Planty muchee solly," he said; "China boy, him heap flaid of Feng-shui. When Feng-shui no likee, we then must go chop-chop…
"I want plenty fine funeral in Chinatown in San Francisco. Oh, heap fine! You buy um first-chop coffin--savvy? Silver heap much—costum big money. You gib my money to Hop Sing Association, topside Ming Yen temple… "Want six-piecee band musicians--China music--heap plenty gong. You no flogettee? Two piecee priest, all dressum white--savvy? You mus' buyum coffin yo'self. Velly fine coffin, heap much silver, an' four-piecee horse. You catchum fireclacker--one, five, seven hundled fireclacker, makeum big noise; an' loast pig, an' plenty lice an' China blandy. Heap fine funeral, costum fifteen hundled dollah. I be bury all same
Mandarin--all same Little Pete. You plomise, sure?"…"Bimeby Hop Sing sendum body back China." He closed his eyes and lay for a long time, worn out with the effort of speaking, as if asleep… "First-chop coffin, plenty much silver"; and again, a little later nd very feebly: "Six-piecee--band music--China music--four-piecee gong--four."… And the low-caste Cantonese coolie, with all the dignity and calmness of a Cicero, composed himself for death….
Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat and whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to
beach the sinking schooner; the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and Moran had camped together on the beach; Hoang taken prisoner, and the hideous filing of his teeth; the beach-combers, silent and watchful behind their sand breastworks; the Chinaman he had killed twitching and hic-coughing at his feet…
Hoang dropped the sacks in the boat, swung himself over the side, and rowed calmly toward the station's wharf. If any notion of putting to sea with the schooner had entered the obscure, perverted cunning of his mind, he had almost instantly rejected it. Chinatown was his aim; once there and under the protection of his Tong, Hoang knew that he was safe… Two hours later, Hoang was lost in San Francisco's Chinatown…