Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (9 page)

He leaned back in his wicker chair and stared straight ahead of him, uncomfortable at her silence, because her silence was worse than words. He was waiting for her to speak, bracing himself to hear what she might say. He saw her glance at him sideways.

“Do you still want to match me for a drink?” she said.

His face grew bright red underneath his tan and freckles. He had never known that he could be moved so deeply by anything that anyone could say to him.

“Do you mean you still want to talk to me?” he asked. “I haven't been joking, Dillaway.”

Miss Dillaway wrinkled her nose.

“See if you've got a coin in your pocket,” she said. “You've got clumsy hands for a forger, Gates.” And that was all she said.

He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a Japanese coin with a hole through the middle of it.

“The trouble with it is,” he said, “that it hasn't got any heads or tails.”

Miss Dillaway laughed.

“You can't make heads or tails of anything in Japan,” she answered, “that's why. I've got an American fifty-cent piece. Wait a minute.”

She was opening her handbag and the train was slowing down beside one of those incongruous, half-European looking stations, built of neat gray brick with a gray tiled roof. Beyond it, perhaps half a mile away, he could see a town, larger than any they had passed, with somber gray brick walls and an arched gate with battlements on either side and with a curved roof structure above it. A line of two-wheeled carts drawn by chunky little horses moved into the town, and behind them came a row of donkeys laden with fagots. The train guard was drawn up on the station platform and their bayonets glittered in the summer sun, partly concealing a group of Chinese country people who stood behind them, watching incuriously. The train was slowing down and a food vendor with tea and rice and spaghetti was running beside it, calling in a plaintive singsong voice.

“It looks like a big town,” said Calvin Gates, “I wonder what it is.”

“It looks dirty,” said Miss Dillaway. “Here's the fifty-cent piece, Gates. Look at the barbed wire and sandbags. You'd better call it, Gates. What do you want, heads or tails?”

“Heads,” he said.

Miss Dillaway slapped the coin on the back of her hand.

“You lose, Gates,” she said. “It's tails. Why look, what's happening now?”

The rear door of the observation car had opened, and a young Japanese subaltern entered, followed by two soldiers with their rifles with bayonets at port. The officer was hardly out of his teens and his expression was eager and ambitious. He was holding a piece of paper in his hand which he consulted scrupulously, and finally looked at Calvin Gates. Calvin put his hand in his pocket and looked back at the officer.

“I'm afraid,” he said, “Mr. Moto's guessed I've got that cigarette case.”

Miss Dillaway pulled his sleeve.

“Then give it to me, Gates,” she said.

Calvin Gates did not look at her, but continued to examine the officer.

“It's too late now,” he answered. “I'm afraid we'd better say good-by, Miss Dillaway. You've been nice to me—much too nice,”

The officer halted before Calvin Gates and spoke very slowly in English, accenting each syllable tonelessly and conscientiously, like a student who has learned the language from a phrase book.

“Good afternoon,” the officer said. “Please, you come with me.”

Calvin smiled, but the officer did not smile.

“Where?” Calvin asked.

The officer paused, laboring hard with the eccentricities of an unknown tongue.

“Arise off your sit, please,” he said. “Go off the train with me at once.”

Calvin Gates rose.

“Well,” he said, “good-by, Miss Dillaway.”

Miss Dillaway had risen also.

“If you're getting off this train,” she said, “I'm getting off with you.”

“No.” Calvin Gates's tone was sharp. “You're doing no such thing. This is my party, and it wouldn't do you any good, but if you see Dr. Gilbreth up there, I wish you'd tell him that I forged that check.”

“But Gates,—” she clung tight to his arm,—“what are they going to do with you?”

His expression was not entirely agreeable. He stood a head and shoulders above the little officer.

“It doesn't make a bit of difference,” he said.

“But they don't even understand English,” Miss Dillaway cried.

“It doesn't make any difference,” Calvin Gates repeated. “Good-by, Miss Dillaway.”

He walked toward the rear platform with the officer beside him and the soldiers just behind.

“Gates!” Miss Dillaway called after him, but he did not answer. In fact he only half heard her, for he seemed to have moved from the train already and from all that country.

CHAPTER IX

Out on the station platform, warm in the late June sunlight, the crowd of chattering, blue-clad Chinese rustics moved hastily aside. He had a glimpse of rolls of bedding and dilapidated baggage, broad dull faces and dull staring eyes. The air was heavy with the odors of coal smoke, and of dough cakes, spaghetti and curiously varnished chickens that were exposed for sale.

“This way please,” the officer said.

He was conducted into a bare and dirty room with a bench along one side of a wall, made greasy by others who had leaned against it waiting. Some soldiers sitting on the bench looked at him and looked away.

“Please,” the lieutenant said, “you sit.” And Calvin Gates sat down. At the end of the room, behind a plain wooden table, was seated a sallow, sickly-looking officer, whose eyes blinked from behind heavy lensed spectacles. In a sharp querulous voice he interrogated a tall, muscular Chinese peasant, clad in nothing but slippers and blue trousers. A Japanese guard whose head reached hardly above the shoulder of the Chinese stood beside him. Without knowing the language, Calvin Gates could understand what was happening by the intonation and by the repetition of syllables. The Chinese was denying something doggedly and stolidly as the officer pressed the question. The lieutenant who had brought Calvin in glanced toward the table and sat down.

“Will not take long,” he said.

The voice of the officer suddenly grew sharper, and the guard standing on tiptoe struck the Chinese across the face. The lieutenant glanced sideways at Calvin Gates.

“Bad man,” he said; “naughty man, a bandit.”

Calvin could see the train through the open window, still waiting, and he wondered why it was delayed. He finally leaned his back against the wall where so many others had leaned before him and drew a travel folder from his pocket, a descriptive pamphlet of Mukden which he had found at the hotel. The lieutenant turned toward him quickly.

“I can read, can't I?” Calvin asked.

“Yes,” the lieutenant said, “oh yes.”

The writer of the pamphlet had been like the lieutenant, a student not wholly familiar with the English language, and thus the words and tenses of that folder progressed with a breathless, eager inaccuracy:—

MANCHURIAN INCIDENT AND NORTH BARRACKS
. At 10.30
P
.
M
. on the 18th of Sept. 1931, the Manchurian Incident was started by the insolent explosion of the railway track at Liutiso kou between Mukden and Wen-kuan-tun stations of the South Manchuria Railway, which was executed by the Chinese regular soldiers. After the explosion the Chinese soldiers attempted to flee themselves in the direction of the North Barracks, but just then they were found by the Japanese railway guards under Lieutenant Kawamoto, who were patrolling the place on duty. Suddenly the both sides exchanged the bullets and the Japanese made a fierce pursuit after them. On the next moment, the Chinese force of some three companies appeared from the thickly growed Kaolian field near the North Barracks, against which the Japanese opposed bravely and desperately, meantime despatching the urgent report to their commander. The skirmish developed speedily and the Japanese troop was compelled to make a violent attack upon the North Barracks where were stationed the brigade of Major-General Wang-icho, to lead the conditions favorable. After several hours of fierce battle, the barracks fell completely into the hand of the Japanese forces.

On the other hand, the Japanese regiment in Mukden rose in concert with the railway guards in the midnight of the same day and succeeded in occupying the walled town, East Barracks, Aerodrome etc., fighting till 2.00
P
.
M
. of the following day with the reenforcement of the other regiments stationed at Liao-yang and Hai-chang.

The North Barracks is opened to the public inspection, and can be reached in 20 minutes by motor car from S.M.R. Mukden Station.

The words of that short account contained an indirect significance, which revealed something of the spirit of Japan. They conveyed an inevitable sense of going somewhere and a sense of destiny. That incident had happened a good many years back but it had repeated itself since and would repeat itself again. In a small way Calvin felt its elements before him in that ugly fly-blown room, illustrated by the heavy Chinese prisoner and the diminutive guard beside him.

The guard gave the prisoner a prod with the butt of his rifle, and the man walked away, beyond the imagination of Calvin Gates, impassively, without fear or anger, with a patient resignation and a poise beyond Calvin's understanding. The lieutenant looked after him complacently.

“Naughty man,” he said. “Will be shot. Get off your sit please. The officer will see you.”

The sallow Japanese behind the table drummed the tips of his fingers on the boards and spoke sharply in the same querulous, scolding tones. The lieutenant twitched at Calvin's sleeve and the two walked over to the table. That twitch on the sleeve, gentle though it had been, was almost a discourtesy. He knew that his resentment was not childish, because he was already learning something of the importance of personal dignity and something of that Oriental term, “face,” which no European can entirely define.

“Take your hand off me,” he said to the lieutenant.

It was a small matter but he knew that the soldiers and the two officers in the room understood him. Although the lieutenant's face was blank, he understood. The officer behind the table rose from his chair and spoke again in Japanese. The lieutenant drew in his breath, bowed to Calvin Gates and spoke in his school-book English.

“Sorry,” he said. “Excuse.”

Not entirely to Calvin's surprise, but to his relief, the officer behind the table spoke in excellent English.

“Excuse him,” he said. “You are Mr. Gates I think. I am the colonel here in command of the district. There was a telegram about you.”

The colonel spoke in Japanese again and the lieutenant saluted and gave an order. There was a scuffling noise of feet which made Calvin Gates look behind him. The lieutenant and the soldiers were leaving the room. The colonel watched them go and did not speak until he and Gates were alone.

The light from the window glittered on the colonel's glasses and he stood stiffly behind the table.

“It is a telegram from a gentleman who knows you, a very important man who shares my political beliefs. His name is Mr. Moto.”

“I thought it was,” said Calvin Gates. “About a cigarette case, is it?”

There was no longer any doubt that Mr. Moto knew where the cigarette case was, and now Calvin knew that Mr. Moto had guessed even before he had left the hotel at Mukden. He remembered Mr. Moto's polite remark about the shoes outside the door; it was then that Mr. Moto had guessed.

“Yes,” the colonel said. “He is asking to be sure if you have a cigarette case with little birds upon it.”

“He is right,” said Calvin Gates. “I suppose you want it, Colonel.”

“Yes,” the colonel said. “So sorry to trouble you, but I must see it.”

Calvin reached in his inside pocket, but the colonel stopped him.

“Be careful,” he said. “Step to the corner here in case someone is looking through the window. Now you may take it out. Thank you.”

The colonel took the cigarette case in both hands and bowed. He turned it over carefully, opened it and closed it.

“Thank you,” the colonel said suddenly. “Thank you so very much. You may take it back now, Mr. Gates.”

“What—” said Calvin Gates. “You want me to take it back? What for? I don't want it.”

Before he answered the colonel smiled at him as though they both knew something which had better not be expressed.

“Of course,” the colonel said. “That is what Mr. Moto has directed. He only wished to be sure all was in order. I am so sure that you understand.”

“Understand what?” Calvin asked him.

The colonel smiled again.

“Of course,” the colonel said, “Mr. Moto has explained. It is an honor to meet a friend of Mr. Moto. They will bring some tea if you will join me, please. The other instructions will not take a moment.”

Calvin Gates felt his thoughts move dizzily, but his instinct told him that it was better to show no astonishment.

“Here is the tea and a chair for you,” the colonel said. “This is so very important. Will you please sit down?”

Two soldiers had entered as the colonel was speaking, one carrying a chair and another a blue-and-white teapot.

The colonel raised his teacup.

“Mr. Moto is a very able man,” he said.

“Yes,” said Calvin, “a very able man.”

“And he forgets nothing,” the colonel said.

“No,” said Calvin, “I don't believe he forgets anything.”

“So you must listen,” the colonel said, “as I speak for Mr. Moto.” The colonel lowered his voice.

“There was a long telegram. Mr. Moto wanted you told that others know you have the case. I hope you understand.”

“Oh,” said Calvin Gates, “some others know, do they?”