Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

The Sickles launch was leaving the pier at two. Morning was there and took a seat. He was holding himself—the avalanche again—and rehearsing in his mind what he should say to Ferry. His brain was afire; the wound in his side had scalded him so long that his voice had a whimper in it. He had not eaten—the thought was repulsive—but he had bought drink in the thought of clearing his brain and deadening his hurt....

His brain was clearer on the launch, but the gin fumed out of him as he approached the upper deck, where Ferry’s quarters were.

The Quartermaster saw him, but was speaking to an infantry captain. Morning waited by the rail. Many times he thought—if he could only begin to speak now. Yet he feared in his heart when Ferry turned to him, he would fail. It was something little and testy in the man—something so different from what he had known in the great strains of Liaoyang—except for Luban. Yes, Ferry was like Luban, when Luban was in the presence of a fancied inferior.... They talked on—Morning thought of murder at last. A peculiar wiry strength gathered about the idea of murder in its connection with Ferry’s dark, mean face. He felt all the old strength in his hands, and more from days of pain—days of holding one’s self—will, body, brain.

“Well——” Ferry had turned to him suddenly.

Morning’s thoughts winged away with a swarm of details of the crime.... “I could tell you something of the Story—I could show you how they cut me on the Liao—the Hun huises——”

“If you come to this deck again—I’ll send you ashore in irons.”

At four that afternoon Morning saw the Coptic draw up her chains and slide out of the harbor, with the swift ease of a river-ferry.... He could not count himself whipped on the Sickles—and this is the real beginning of John Morning. He was Fate-driven. The man who did not have the courage to ask his rights in Tokyo—to inquire the reason of his disbarment, was not through with the American transport Sickles. A full day ahead of the mails in San Francisco—and he was waiting for the dusk. The fight had been brought to him. He was dull to the idea of being whipped.

Three enlisted men were drinking in the little apothecary shop which Morning had used for the day’s headquarters. They belonged to the Sickles. They had been taking just one more drink for many minutes. He told them he was sailing on the transport and joined them in a sampan to the ship when it was dark. The harbor was still as a dream; the dark blending with the water.... They touched the bellying white plates of the ship. Morning seemed to come up from infinite depths.... The men were very drunk; they had ordered rapidly toward the end; the effect caught up as swiftly now. They helped each other officiously. Morning put on the fallen hat of one who had become unconscious.... The watch was of them, a corporal, who was no trouble-maker. He blustered profusely and hurried them below.... Morning was bewildered. He had spoken no word, but helped the others carry the body, a wobbly deputation, down among the hammocks.... He heard the voices of those maimed in mind.... He placed his end of the soldier’s body down, left his companions, and made his way forward, to where the hammocks were farther apart. Early years had given him a sort of enlisted man’s consciousness of things; and he knew now not to take another’s place. He chose one from a pile of hammocks and slung it forward, close to the bulk-head of the bedlam, and well out of the lights.... He lay across his only baggage, a package containing a thousand sheets of Chinese parchment. He lay rigid, trying to remember if out-going ships took a pilot out of Nagasaki.

He heard the anchor-chain. He was very close to it. The voices of the sun-struck and vino-maddened men from the Islands were deadened by the hideous grating of the links in the socket.... It was not too late for him to be put ashore even now; since it was war-time. Of course there would be a pilot, for the harbor was mined.... He drew the canvas about his ears, but the voices of the brain-dead men reached him.... Cats, pirates, and river-reptiles terrified them; one man was still lost in a jungle set with bolo-traps; the emptiness of others was filled by strange abominations glad of the flesh again.

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