Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

Fallows had been so sure of his friend’s physical courage, that he made no point of it, in the expression of attachment.... He had called it vision at first, this thing that had drawn him to John Morning—a touch of the poet, a touch of the feminine—others might have called it. No matter the name, he had seen it, as all artists of the expression of the inner life recognize it in one another; and Fallows knew well that where the courage of the soldier ends, the courage of the visionary begins.

Morning was a trifle peculiar, however. Unless it sank utterly, he stuck to a ship, until the horizon revealed another sail.

He had come up through the dark. The world had grounded him deeply in illusion. Most brilliant of promises—even Fallows had not seen him that first day in too bright a dawn—but he learned hard. And his had been close fighting—such desperate fighting that one does not hear voices, and one is too deep in the ruck to see the open distance.... Much as he had been alone—the world had invariably shattered his silences. Always he had worked—worked, worked furiously, angrily, for himself.... He was taught so. The world had caught him as a child in his brief, pitiful tenderness. The world was his Eli. As from sleep, he had heard Reality calling. He had risen to answer, but the false Eli had spoken—an Eli that did not teach him truly to listen, nor to say, when he heard the Voice another time—“Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.”

14

The Taitse, of large and ancient establishment, runs westward from Liaoyang for twenty-five miles, and in a well-earned bed, portions of which are worn in the rock. Morning rode along the north bank, thus avoiding altogether a crossing of the Taitse, since his journey continued westward from the point where the river took its southward bend. From thence it paralleled the Hun in a race to join the Liao. The main stem of the latter was beyond the Hun, and these two arteries of Asia broke Morning’s trail. Fording streams of such magnitude was out of the question, and there was a strong chance of an encounter with the Hun huises at the ferries....

Rain, and the sorrel’s round hoofs sucked sharply in the clay. She had no shoes to lose in these drawing vacuums. The scent of her came up warm and good to the horse-lover. Alone on a road, she had always been manageable, hating crowds and noise—soldiers, Chinese, and accoutrements. Perhaps, this was merely a biding of time. Eve had a fine sense of keeping a strange road. This was not usual, although a horse travels a familiar road in the darkness better than a man. These two worked well together.

By map the distance from Liaoyang to Koupangtse was seventy miles. Morning counted upon ninety, at least. The Manchurian roads are old and odd as the Oriental mind.... He passed the southward bend of the big river, and at daybreak reached Chiensen, ten miles beyond, on the Hun.

Chiensen, unavoidable on account of the ferry, was a danger-point. Japanese cavalry, it was reported, frequently lit there, and the Hun huises (Chinese river-pirates and thieves in general, whom Alexieff designated well as “the scourge of Manchuria”) were at base in this village.... In the gray he found junks, a flat tow and landing.

You never know what Chinese John is going to do. If you have but little ground of language between you, he will take his own way, on the pretext of misunderstanding. Morning’s idea was to get across quickly, without arousing the river-front. He awoke the ferryman, placing three silver taels in his hand. (He carried silver, enough native currency to get him to Japan, his passport, and the two large envelopes Duke Fallows had given him, in the hip-pockets of his riding breeches.) The ferryman had no thought of making the first crossing without tea. Morning labored with him, and with seeming effect for a moment, but the other fell suddenly from grace and aroused his family. He was not delicate about it. Morning resigned himself to the delay, and was firmly persuading Eve to be moderate, as she drank from the river’s edge, when Chinese John suddenly aroused the river population. Standing well out on the tow-flat, he trumpeted at some comrade of the night before, apparently no less than a hundred yards up the river. There were sleepy answers from many junks within range of the voice. It was the one hateful thing to John Morning—yet to rough it with the ferryman for his point of view would be the only thing worse.

The landing was rickety; its jointure with the tow-boat imperfect. The American took off his coat, tossed it over the sorrel’s head, tying the sleeves under her throat. She stiffened in rebellion, but as the darkness was as yet little broken by the day, she decided to accept the situation. Morning felt her growing reluctance, however, as she traversed the creaking, springy boards. The crevasse between the landing and the craft was bridged; and the latter, grounded on the shore-side, did not give. The mare stood in the center of the tow, sweating and tense.