“You see, O’Neil,” he had exclaimed in the strictest confidence while they were both working to repair the damage caused by Takishima’s few minutes of liberty, “when a fellow gets down on his luck in a foreign country, his sense of right and wrong suffers a blight. He can’t recognize the difference until it’s pointed out to him. I thought it was fine to vilify my country and countrymen, baiting the Japanese bull, as it were. I got good pay for it, and it all went home to my mother.” Here he lowered his voice, and a wistful look came into his eyes. “She didn’t know that the money was tainted, and besides,” he added softly, “there wasn’t any money coming from anywhere else, and she was very much in need of it.”
O’Neil put out a strong, honest hand and placed it on Randall’s shoulder.
“It ain’t for the likes of me to blame you, son,” he said, an imperceptible trace of moisture in his eye that made him wink. “I don’t say you didn’t do wrong, for you did, and you knew it, but when a man is sorry and honestly says so, and besides has a lonely mother to take care of, then I’m for saying no more about it.”
Randall derived no small comfort from the sailor’s words.
“By the way,” the boatswain’s mate suddenly asked, “where’s that Filipino who nearly caused a free fight in the theatre?”
Randall grinned.
“Turned up missing the night we sailed,” he replied. “I think he swam ashore. There was some talk of going to Manila, and I believe he’s wanted there by the government for some crime, an outlaw probably; he looks the part.”
“Who instigated the theatre row?” O’Neil asked.
“Our chief, Impey. That man can do anything he tries to do,” Randall began, when O’Neil interrupted.
“Anything deceitful and underhanded, you mean,” the sailor exclaimed, with fire in his eyes. “I’d give a month’s pay to be allowed to throttle him.”