Our next attempt towards obtaining passage was on a British tramp coal steamer plying between Honolulu and Australia. I was especially eager to go to Sydney because a friend of mine, touring the southern continent, had procured a job for me with a draying company in that city. The British tramp was to be painted on her return to Australia and as men were needed Richardson and I were signed on and our duties outlined. They consisted of knocking off the old paint on the side of the ship for twenty-one days. The skipper informed us that the boat was to get under way the following afternoon and that we ought to report for duty in the morning. We were on hand the next day but only to be disappointed, for there was no ship to be found. We learned that it had received orders to sail at once for Seattle and had left at midnight.
We were now left in the lurch. We had tendered our resignations to the Secretary of the Navy and had severed our connections with the Pearl Harbour operations. To diminish our chances for passage to the Orient there was nothing going our way upon which there was the remotest chance of getting a job. Although we felt rather opulent after several months' work as inspectors we were reluctant to look up the rates to Yokohama on the regular liners—but decided to do so. We found that on the following day the Asia, an intermediate steamer of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, was due from San Francisco en route to Japan and that the fare was seventy-five dollars. This was a huge sum to part with at one blow, but when compared with the regular first class fare of one hundred and fifty dollars on the larger boats looked like a saving. We also figured that by the time we had spent several months floundering around Australia, in spite of the money saved getting there, we should arrive in Manila several hundred dollars out. With these considerations we decided to take the Asia to Yokohama.
We had spent a number of weeks in getting our baggage together and had reduced it to a scientific minimum. We agreed only to take a suit case and a small hand bag each. In addition to these Richardson was to bring his camera. Our baggage consisted of the following wearing apparel and fixtures: two suits of clothes each (one on our backs), one pair of heavy shoes, a cap, six soft shirts, two flannel shirts, a pair of overalls, a dozen socks, six sets of underwear, a dozen handkerchiefs, a rain coat, a few toilet articles, diaries and some stationery. The trip was not to be a dress affair and all hard-boiled shirts, linen collars and evening clothes were dismissed from the start. Even with our wardrobes reduced to this half civilised minimum, it required systematic packing and almost superhuman strength to close our suit cases.
We closed up our affairs in Honolulu, put our money into American Bankers' Travelers' checks, ate a few farewell meals, drank a few final toasts and were in readiness to depart. The Asia was scheduled to leave at five in the afternoon. I was on the pier a few minutes before the appointed time, but there was no sign of Richardson. Five minutes to five—and Richardson had not arrived; four, three, two and one minute to five—and Richardson was nowhere to be found. Five o'clock—and no Richardson. The lines of the ship were being loosened from the pier. I was on board; after having made arrangements with some navy men to have the government launch bring Richardson out to the Asia while she was turning in the stream or to tell him to meet me in Yokohama. At two minutes after five o'clock—just as the ship was getting under way—Richardson came running down the wharf armed with a suit case, a small leather bag, a camera, a rain coat, a hair brush extending from one pocket, a bottle of tooth powder from another and a half a dozen small bundles hanging from any place where they could stick. The gangplank was lowered and he came aboard, while a handful of friends placed several Hawaiian leis about his perspiring neck.
The Royal Hawaiian Band played Aloha Oe, the ship got under way and we began the second leg of our trip with seven hundred dollars each in our pockets.
LIVING AS JAPANESE IN JAPAN