The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

In the hospital, Saunders continued to let go his grip on life as gently as possible. Tangible woe and regret had become active agents in assisting the passive manner of his fading away. A new major-surgeon came up from Tientsin to assume charge of the hospital, and he was angry when he examined Saunders and heard the history of the case. "That man is dying of homesickness and worry," he growled to the hospital corps private in the ward; "and now he hasn't enough vitality left in him to risk moving in an ambulance. He'd snuff out like a candle on the way to Tientsin, and you can't keep him alive more than two weeks longer. He may as well die in some comfort as be jolted to death."

Much of the time in the following week Saunders hovered along the borderland of dreams which were not wholly disquieting, for he had become on friendly terms with the gilded dragons on the shadowy rafters, and now and then they talked to him. The sick men of P Company had been sent back to duty, and Saunders did not know those who had taken their places along his aisle of the columned temple. When he noticed them, it was to whisper little inconsequential memories of home, and to tell passers-by of some new discovery gleaned from an intimate familiarity with numberless gilded dragons that never slept. He still noted the tally marks on the frame of his cot, and when he was too weak to reach them, the man in the nearest cot scratched a cross for him until only seven marks remained. The letter was no longer read, but the tragedy it told was woven through much of the delirious talk of the patient.

Meantime "Shorty" Blake had been routed with heavy loss among the canteens and other diversions of Tientsin, and, greatly the worse for wear, made his way to Taku and boarded a Japanese transport bound for Nagasaki. He went ashore in that entertaining port with three Mexican dollars as the melancholy remnant of his pay and travel allowance "to the place of enlistment," and presented his papers to the American quartermaster stationed in Nagasaki, who gave him an order for transportation on the next United States transport sailing for San Francisco.

Discharged Private Blake was much disconcerted when he was informed that no Government vessel was to stop en route from Manila in less than two weeks, and that he was stranded "on the beach," with several other recent losses to the fighting strength of the army in the Orient. A bundle of looted silk had been exchanged in Tientsin for bottles of astonishing Scotch whiskey made in Shanghai, and there was nothing else of cash value in the light marching order of ex-private Blake. He hired a room in a toy-like Japanese hotel, and late that night returned without his three Mexican dollars, but with the perverted energy of a runaway automobile. Charging headlong through the dainty paper walls of the hotel rather than be annoyed by trying to find the door mobilized a small army of Japanese policemen, and memory came back to Blake when he was dragged into the street, his haversack hurled at his head by the agitated landlord.

Daylight found him very thirsty and nervous, wandering along the edge of the bay, waiting for a glimpse of a blue army blouse and the tenuous hope of a small loan. He leaned against the stone wall of the Hatoba, with his haversack under his tortured head, and twisted as his cheek rubbed a hard lump beneath the canvas. Ramming his hand into the haversack with a peevish curse, "Shorty" pulled out a package wrapped in wadded silk, and unrolled a teapot of green imperial jade. A stocky manikin of the Nagasaki police was standing near, and the soldier addressed him and the sleeping harbor without partiality:

"If I didn't forget all about Jim Saunders and his teapot, I'm a liar. An' he must be dead an' planted by this time, an' the old homestead gone to hell, an' nothin' left but this looney little teapot as his last will an' testament. I'll surely send it to Kansas all right, tho' it ain't goin' to cheer the old lady very much. The teapot must be worth as much as a dollar and a half."

Then the demon of thirst gripped Blake by the throat, and the effort of swallowing fairly shook him. He slipped the teapot into his haversack, and to his credit it must be told that he struggled with temptation for several minutes. Then he muttered weakly: "I ain't goin' to sell it. The teapot will be all safe in hock till I can send for it or make a strike. Who's goin' to know the difference, anyway? Saunders had no business to pass away like a sick chicken, an' load me up with this billy-be-damned piece of bric-a-brac."

But shops and saloons were not yet opened, and "Shorty" Blake walked heavily along many blocks of silent streets, his thirst more raging and insistent as he found himself thwarted. Every scruple vanished and he was ready to sell the teapot for the price of a pint flask of anything searching and fiery.

The rattle of rickshaw wheels made him suddenly alert, and he stumbled toward the sound. As he turned a corner there was a collision, and the racing coolie in the shafts slid on his head, while the passenger barely saved himself from an ugly backward fall. The Japanese officer so nearly upset accepted the awkward apologies of the soldier derelict and politely asked whether he had been hurt. "Shorty" pulled himself together and, saluting instinctively, he spoke with breathless haste: