Read Online Ghost Sea: A Novel (Dugger/Nello Series) by Ferenc Máté - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ferenc Máté
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comes this wreck of a tramp steamer limping in, beat-up, patched, belching ghastly smoke, listing as if battling a hurricane, down in the stern full of who knew how much water. Rust bled from every fastener, and her sheer was so distorted by years of pounding waves that her back, if not quite broken, was forever deformed. She seemed to undulate as she moved, barely alive, and not only would she never cross an ocean, but I wouldn’t have bet on her making it to the dock.
The stevedores stood among their hills of coffee sacks and bales of stinking hides and stared at the dying ship. A shiny new police car, bell clanging, weaved along the pier, followed by a horse cart full of cops, and out they all poured, forming a wall along the pier ready to defend the continent.
One shouted through a megaphone at the ship that showed no life, ordered the invisible everyone to remain on board, and some even pulled their guns ready to fire at her dented smokestack, her swaybacked bridge, or maybe her limp flag, unrecognizable from soot. Then the enemy appeared: two lean Malays or Siamese clutching dock lines looked at all the commotion with the detached interest of monkeys watching their watchers at the zoo. A few more scruffy seamen crawled out of the hatchways. A pack of cops scrambled down onto her deck and shouted through the megaphone at the poor buggers, ordered them—still as statues—not to move. Then the cops vanished down a hatchway in the hold. The stevedores took her lines and tied her to bollards as if this kind of wreck landed every day.
The cops suddenly reappeared, some gasping, others running to the gunwales and retching over the side, all of them scrambling back onto the dock as if chased by fiends. An emaciated pair of Chinamen came half-naked into the sun, holding by the ankles and under the armpits a nearly weightless corpse. Then others came with similar burdens. They laid the corpses side by side on the foredeck: five, ten, fifteen, and still they brought more. When they ran out of room, they stacked them like cordwood.
From the hold they hauled up seven coffins—some light wood I didn’t recognize—and stood them against the deckhouse ready for the lucky winners among the thirty dead. Somebody laughed aloud; a big stevedor cried. But the cops stood their ground; nobody was getting off alive or dead. There was a prohibition of colored people coming into the country: a shipful of Pakies had been put back out to sea, and they rounded up eight thousand Orientals into a fenced camp on the island ready to stuff them into the next steamer, and shove them off for home.
And they were the lucky ones; the others had died for a king they never heard of on a continent they didn’t know existed, died serving “real” soldiers, clearing mines or burying the dead. But now the war was over and the Pakies and the Chinamen had to go.
By nightfall the stiffs began to reek. The sergeant wanted to cut the lines and let her go. “That’s the way, O’Hanlon!” Nello yelled beside me. “Kick their slant-eyed asses back where they belong. It’s what we should have done when you whities came and ruined the neighborhood.”
“You got a lot of good things from us whities,” O’Hanlon snarled.
“All I got was the clap from your sister.”
“If I had a sister, your nose would be busted.”
“If you had a sister, you would have her clap.”
“Get him out of here, Cappy,” O’Hanlon said, beet-red. “Before I stain my hands with his blood.”
A man with a long pole lit the gas lamps on the shore. Later, Chinamen came with lanterns, steaming pots dangling from their shoulders—roast pork, and tea, and a big cauldron of rice. They filled bowls and handed them down to the bony hands that shone white in the dark.
I went back to load and put things in order below. When I came back near midnight, the pier was deserted, the ship gone. I looked over the edge, sure that it had sunk, but there were no dock lines, no jetsam.
The stevedores stood among their hills of coffee sacks and bales of stinking hides and stared at the dying ship. A shiny new police car, bell clanging, weaved along the pier, followed by a horse cart full of cops, and out they all poured, forming a wall along the pier ready to defend the continent.
One shouted through a megaphone at the ship that showed no life, ordered the invisible everyone to remain on board, and some even pulled their guns ready to fire at her dented smokestack, her swaybacked bridge, or maybe her limp flag, unrecognizable from soot. Then the enemy appeared: two lean Malays or Siamese clutching dock lines looked at all the commotion with the detached interest of monkeys watching their watchers at the zoo. A few more scruffy seamen crawled out of the hatchways. A pack of cops scrambled down onto her deck and shouted through the megaphone at the poor buggers, ordered them—still as statues—not to move. Then the cops vanished down a hatchway in the hold. The stevedores took her lines and tied her to bollards as if this kind of wreck landed every day.
The cops suddenly reappeared, some gasping, others running to the gunwales and retching over the side, all of them scrambling back onto the dock as if chased by fiends. An emaciated pair of Chinamen came half-naked into the sun, holding by the ankles and under the armpits a nearly weightless corpse. Then others came with similar burdens. They laid the corpses side by side on the foredeck: five, ten, fifteen, and still they brought more. When they ran out of room, they stacked them like cordwood.
From the hold they hauled up seven coffins—some light wood I didn’t recognize—and stood them against the deckhouse ready for the lucky winners among the thirty dead. Somebody laughed aloud; a big stevedor cried. But the cops stood their ground; nobody was getting off alive or dead. There was a prohibition of colored people coming into the country: a shipful of Pakies had been put back out to sea, and they rounded up eight thousand Orientals into a fenced camp on the island ready to stuff them into the next steamer, and shove them off for home.
And they were the lucky ones; the others had died for a king they never heard of on a continent they didn’t know existed, died serving “real” soldiers, clearing mines or burying the dead. But now the war was over and the Pakies and the Chinamen had to go.
By nightfall the stiffs began to reek. The sergeant wanted to cut the lines and let her go. “That’s the way, O’Hanlon!” Nello yelled beside me. “Kick their slant-eyed asses back where they belong. It’s what we should have done when you whities came and ruined the neighborhood.”
“You got a lot of good things from us whities,” O’Hanlon snarled.
“All I got was the clap from your sister.”
“If I had a sister, your nose would be busted.”
“If you had a sister, you would have her clap.”
“Get him out of here, Cappy,” O’Hanlon said, beet-red. “Before I stain my hands with his blood.”
A man with a long pole lit the gas lamps on the shore. Later, Chinamen came with lanterns, steaming pots dangling from their shoulders—roast pork, and tea, and a big cauldron of rice. They filled bowls and handed them down to the bony hands that shone white in the dark.
I went back to load and put things in order below. When I came back near midnight, the pier was deserted, the ship gone. I looked over the edge, sure that it had sunk, but there were no dock lines, no jetsam.
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