Read Online Leon Uris by O'Hara's Choice - Free Book Online

by our agreement.”
    “And your sons? Will they return?”
    “That is up to them. The madam and I feel we have afforded them the opportunity, but it is their decision what to make of their lives.”
    “You speak so strangely. This world would become chaos if fathers did not control the destinies of their sons,” Wu said.
    “The tradition of obedient sons is not as powerful in America as in China. The value of my mission here has been proven. I am no longer needed.”
    “You are needed, Tobias.”
    “The artillery and the academy are on firm footing. That is what I came for. I did not come to be a minister of the royal Nandong court. I long for my own way . . .”
    “Tobias, I have seen you look down from your balcony, over the wall to the port. Each time a ship leaves Nandong filled with emigrants—or shall we call it by its true name, substitute slave labor, contract indentured labor, coolie labor . . . the pig trade. My people go out of China as pigs, live as pigs, and most die as pigs.”
    “I am deep into your history and I understand the conditions under which China has had to evolve. Too much desert, too many magnificent mountains, and never enough bountiful earth. God’s wrath has devoured your people through drought, flood, earthquakes, bandits, monsoons, disease, and drought again. Massive starvation and basic existence have been China’s curse for the centuries. Sometimes, Your Majesty, I can almost bring myself to understand why you have to throw your people out to the world. What I cannot bring myself to understand, ever, is the lack of human compassion.”
    “You forgot to mention the recurring cycles of infanticide and the ravages of pestilence, Tobias. Much less the rape of China by foreign nations that drugged our people with opium. And put the coolie trade in suffocating holds. No matter where the coolie lands, he is looked upon as a subhuman monkey.”
    “And the profits from the coolie trade?” Tobias dared.
    The emperor gave a small laugh. “At least the coolie knows he is worth something. We have become a mockery. Compassion ends at the line where we claw out continued existence. Royalty cannot rule with compassion.”
    Wu thought for a moment, then went on. “The coolies are flung out to a world to work the most dangerous mines, building railroads over sun-scorched deserts, doing the filth and pity work for cruel overseers.”
    The emperor scratched his signature on the document to approve Tobias’s departure, then held his hand on it for a moment.
    “There are unusual beaches in Peru,” Wu Ling Chow said, “and unusual islands off Peru’s coast. For millennia, birds have deposited their guano, building up mountains of bird droppings. Coolies are entombed in these places and pick at the guano and sack it to be shipped to the European fields to fertilize them.” His voice quavered, a very rare occurrence. “Are those droppings not our people? Are we not treated by the world as bird shit from Peru? Few coolies survive on these islands and beaches for more than a year. Those who do survive have established colonies and the colonies have taken root and will prosper and they send for their families.
    “We will eternally bear humiliation because of our treatment. In your Bible, Tobias, one of the ancient prophets said, ‘The survival of the human race depends on human dignity.’ Do not speak to me about compassion and democracy until we are granted human dignity. Until then, I shall rule as I shall rule.”
    After two terms, Captain Storm petitioned to return to America. He and Matilda and crates of opulent possessions landed in San Francisco, where they entrained for the long and exhausting journey across the country.
1888—Prichard’s Inn
    When Major Boone received the telegraph message of Captain Storm’s delay, he dispatched his orderly to the commandant with a letter requesting that he and the Gunny be allowed to remain at Prichard’s.
    Colonel Ballard, fresh from