The inhabitants, lacking the politeness of the Burmese, were dull and docile, stirring abroad, often, as briefly clothed as their brethren of the trackless bush. Chinamen were numerous, the European community by no means small. Not all her white residents dwell in Bangkok by choice. A majority of them, if popular tradition is to be credited, came thither hastily and show no longing to depart. For Siam has few treaties of extradition with the outside world. A few of these exiles have prospered and are commercial powers in the capital. Others seem content to live out their declining years in a simple bungalow of the suburbs, with a native wife and naught to disturb their tropical day-dreams save the dread of that hour in which France or England may absorb the little buffer state and drive them forth to seek new refuge. Of these latter we met a half-dozen, among them two of my own countrymen, who made no secret of their wayward conduct in other climes.
There were neither beachcombers nor shipping-offices in Bangkok. Deck passage to Hong Kong, however, cost next to nothing, and four days after our arrival we made application for tickets at the steamship offices. To our surprise the company refused to sell them. Deck passage was for natives only; white men, insisted the agent, must travel first or second class.
We hurried back to our respective consulates and met again a half-hour later, each armed with a letter to the obdurate agent. What the representatives of our outspoken governments had written we had no means of knowing; but the notes were evidently brief and to the point, for the clerk, muttering angrily to himself, made out deck tickets with unusual celerity. The next afternoon an unclad female paddled us lazily across the Menam in a raging downpour and set us aboard the Paklat, a miniature North German Lloyd steamer that cast off her shore lines three hours later, and, slipping down over the sand bar at the mouth of the river, dropped anchor next morning in the cove outside to finish loading.
The Paklat was officered by five Germans and manned by a hundred Chinese seamen, stokers and stewards, between which two nationalities conversation was carried on entirely in English. In the first cabin were several wealthy Oriental merchants; “on deck,” a half-hundred Chinese coolies. Discipline was there none aboard the craft. The sailors obeyed orders when they chose and heaped abuse on the officers when they preferred to loaf. For the latter, in constant dread of being betrayed to the pirates that abound in these waters, stood in abject fear of the crew.
Never before had the Paklat carried white men as deck passengers. The Chinese seamen, therefore, considering our presence on board an encroachment on the special privileges of their race, had greeted our first appearance with scowls and snarls, and vied with each other in so arranging their work as to cause us as much annoyance as possible. We laughed at their enmity and, choosing a space abaft the wheelhouse, stripped to trousers and undershirt and settled down for a monotonous voyage.
Two sweltering days the steamer rode at anchor in the outer bay. On the afternoon of the second the entire force of stewards, some thirty strong, marched aft with their bowls of rice and squatted in a semicircle near us. Not satisfied with merely encroaching on our chosen precincts, one of the band sat down on the bundle containing my kodak. When I voiced an objection the fellow leered at me and refused to move. I threw down the book I was reading and, putting a bare foot against his naked shoulder, pushed him aside and took possession of my pack. In his fall he dropped and broke his rice bowl. The entire band, accustomed, like most Orientals, to avoid angry white men, retreated several yards, leaving their dishes of “chow” where they had been sitting. The chief steward, a snaky-eyed Celestial with a good command of English, berated us roundly in that tongue and then ran forward to summon the first mate.
“Vell! Vell! Und vat I can do?” demanded that pudgy-faced Teuton, when he had heard both sides of the story. “Vy you come deck-passengers? You must look out by yourselfs yet,” and, picking his way apologetically among the screaming stewards, he hurried back to the bridge.
For a moment the Chinamen stood silent. I turned my back upon them and, sitting down on the bare deck beside the Australian, fell again to reading.
“Kang kweitze!” (Kill the foreign devils!) screamed the chief of the stewards suddenly. With a roar as of an overturned hive of gigantic bees, the Chinamen surged forward. A ten-foot scantling, left on the deck by the carpenter, struck me a stunning blow on the back of the head, knocking my book overboard; and I landed face down among the rudder-chains at the rail.
When I collected my wits a dozen Chinamen were belaboring me with bamboo cudgels. I struggled to my feet. James was laying about him right merrily. At every blow of his hard, brown fists a shrieking Celestial went spinning across the deck. We stood back to back and struck out desperately. Buckets, clubs, and rope-ends beat a continual tattoo on our heads and shoulders. Of a dozen bamboo stools that had been scattered about the deck no less than eight were smashed to bits over our bare crowns. Inch by inch we fought our way around the deck house and, escaping from our assailants, raced forward.