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PARTＩ Video Documentary: 憶胡佛號 “觸礁” 事件
PARTＩ Video Documentary: 憶胡佛號 “觸礁” 事件
ＰＡＲＴ ＩＩ A Maiden’s Voyage
ＰＡＲＴ ＩＩ A Maiden’s Voyage
episodes 01 On River Danube Aboard MS River Harmony, November 1, 2018
episodes 01 On River Danube Aboard MS River Harmony, November 1, 2018
“Excuse me, are these seats taken?” she asked the couple sitting at a table for four.
“No. Please join us,” said the lady. “I am Susie. This is my husband, Jim.”
“Hi! I am Vera. Look at those gorgeous fall colors passing through the windows! I got so intoxicated by them that I did not even hear the dinner call.”
“Where are you from?”
“Los Angeles. We don’t have seasons. Can you imagine that our rivers are paved with cement?”
“Really?” said Susie. Then she changed topic, “You care to join us for a toast?”
“What’s the occasion?”
“It is my father’s 108 birthday.”
“Wow! I have never met anybody who is older than a century,” said Vera. “Is he with you on board?”
“He didn’t quite make it. He passed away at 96.”
“What a good daughter you are, still remembering your dad’s birthday 12 years later!”
“I remember it because his birthday is on All Saints Day, particularly when I am on a cruise. He was a seaman. You like to cruise?”
“Yes, but I prefer river cruise. I don’t like ocean cruise.”
“You get seasick?”
“Yes, but that is not the reason. I could always take seasick pills.”
“Bad experience?”
“I had a shipwreck.”
“No kidding! My father had also been in a shipwreck. But that was, let me see...” after a short pause, “Eighty-one years ago.”
Eighty-one years ago! Vera’s mind started to drift. Suddenly the long forgotten past rose up vividly. It was the day after All Saints Day. It was not raining. It was not cold, just nippy.
episodes 0２ Ottawa, November 2, 1937
episodes 0２ Ottawa, November 2, 1937
As she rolled laughing down the lawn on the slope in front of the red house, some freshly cut grass got into her mouth. She liked that taste. She got up and ran back up the slope. Just as she was ready to roll down again, she heard a menacing fire truck siren blaring in the distance...
“Get up!”
“One more roll!”
“Roll?”
“One more minute I mean. Please, Ah-ma.”
“This is your last day of school.”
She jumped out of bed. She had never missed a single day of school in her life, certainly not this one.
Since the beginning of fall, the little girl had kept announcing proudly to people that she was now a second grader. Second grade was totally different from first grade: The prints in her books were much smaller. The songs she sang changed from nursery rhymes to church songs. Most of all she was writing with an ink pen. It was her Daddy’s old Sheffield. It had a turtle-shell outside and a gold tip on the nip. Daddy gave it to her on the first day she started her second grade. She was going to do some serious writing.
Although the Sister for second grade was much stricter, she was quite nice, even offered her to board at the convent.
She dressed herself in the morning; finished her breakfast even though she hated oatmeal; combed her hair and brushed her teeth without being reminded. She walked to school by herself. She was expected of doing all these things. She was the oldest. Out of the four girls, she was Ah-ho’s favorite.
Walking down the stairs in the back of the house, she heard Ah-ho calling out after her, “Do you have your handkerchief?”
“Yes, Ah-ma,” she answered in Ah-ho’s native dialect.
There were so many languages spoken in the house, English, French, Tagalog, Mandarin, Cantonese... Ah-ho did not speak any of them. She kept the native tongue of the village she came from. Kids were not allowed to call her by her name. So they called her Ah-ma, Mother in her dialect.
“Did you bring the picture book you colored last night?”
“Yes, Ah-ma.”
“And your fountain pen?”
“Of course!”
“Don’t get into the street. Stay on the sidewalk!”
“Yes, yes, yes, Ah-ma. I know!”
Coming out of the two-story red house, she did not see a single person on the street. It was too early for the people in these big Embassy mansions to venture out into the cold streets. She looked up to the pale blue sky. She was going to miss the snow this year. How is Christmas going to look without the snow?
The school was just five blocks down the street. But she always walked on the next street to avoid the big vicious dog that barked at her every time she passed by. Further down, there was this mean little fat girl calling out profanities, like “Ah ah-ah ah ah, she’s afraid of the pussy dog.”
She finally arrived at school, a white three-story building with black half-timber façades on all sides. She took off her coat and hung it on the peg under her name. She took off her walking shoes and put on a pair of soft shoes and then climbed up a long flight of stairs.
“1, 2, 3, 4...” she always counted as she climbed. “... 19, 20.” There was a closed door by the staircase. Every time she passed by, she always had the urge to push it in to find out what was behind that door. Only the sisters were allowed in. Just like in her own home, only her Daddy and the men dressed in suits, who came to work during the day, were allowed on the first floor. Do the sisters take off their headgears when they are in there? Do they have hair? How do they look in their pajamas? Do they have dolls or Teddy bears to sleep with? Do they jump on their beds?
She would have been able to find out if she were going to live with the sisters in the convent. But her parents said that was out of the question. They were leaving the city and were not coming back.
She resumed her climbing. “21, 22, 23,... 40.” She finally reached the floor where the classrooms were.
“Good morning, Sister Mary,” she said as she handed her drawing to the Sister.
“Good morning, Vera. That was nice work!”
“What do you want me to pack in your suitcase?” Ah-ho yelled out to Vera just as she came into the house from school that afternoon.
“Did you pack my Teddy bear?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Here is my fountain pen. I won’t need it on this trip, would I, Ah-ma?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where are we going, Ah-ma?”
“Big Apple.”
Vera’s eyes opened wide on hearing the last word. It couldn’t be just one apple. Ah-ma must mean an apple orchard. What does an orchard look like? She had never been outside of the city. All she had been to were reachable by the city bus.
“How big is the Big Apple?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Ah-ho.
“Then why did you say it’s a big apple?”
“Go ask your Mother.”
“Mama, where is this Big Apple?”
“America.”
“Aren’t we already in America?”
“People there think they are the only Americans. They don’t know there are other people living in America. So we just play along to make them happy.”
“What other people?”
“Eskimos, Haidas, Canadians, French, Chinese...”
“Are we Chinese, Mama?”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“Our ancestors came from there.”
“But Sister Mary told us we are all Canadians.”
“She’s right.”
“Why?”
“You girls were all born in Canada.”
“How can we be American, Canadian and Chinese all at the same time?”
“All people in America came from other places.”
“What other places?”
“England, France, China...”
“What about the Eskimos?”
“Eskimos and Haidas are the only natives.”
“Are they Chinese?”
“No.”
“Why does Amy Featherfoot look like Ah-ma?”
“Because Amy’s ancestors and Chinese all came from the same part of the world.”
“Then why aren’t Haidas called Chinese?”
“Go help Ah-ho pack your clothes.”
“What is Big Apple like, Mama?”
“You will find out when you get there.”
episodes 0３ Big Apple, November,1937
episodes 0３ Big Apple, November,1937
Vera could not believe that such tall buildings could grow out of dirt, she meant asphalt and concrete pavements. They grew so tall that it looked as if they were touching the clouds. She had to bend herself backward to look at them. Even so, she still could not see their tops. There were so many of them. She felt suffocated as if being trapped in a forest.
They went into one of them. She looked for the stairs and wondered how many steps she had to count to reach the top. Instead, the man in uniform took them into a small room. As soon as its door was closed, the room moved. It moved so fast that her ears popped. It was an elevator, she was told. The first thing she did when she got out of the elevator was to run to the window to see if she could touch the clouds. She could not believe she was so high up that the cars that were running on the streets a while ago had all shrunk into small beetles, crawling slowly like ants. She got dizzy.
“Are we going to sleep here tonight, Ah-ma?”
“What do you think those beds are for?”
“I am afraid of height.”
“Just don’t look out the window.”
“I can’t help not to.”
“Let me draw the drapes.”
The next morning, when Vera woke up, her mother was already out shopping. After breakfast, her father took her and her sister, Vickie to explore the streets. Ah-ma stayed at the hotel with her two younger sisters who were too young to go out. Virginia was three, and Marina was just a few days over one.
The streets were lined with big windows. Inside the windows there were mannequins dressed in fancy clothes. In one window they saw autumn leaves and in another winter snow. Then they came to a wide opening to a sight of flashing and moving lights, brighter than the streaks of sunlight squeezing through between the buildings. The billboards were many times taller than the houses back in Ottawa. Is this the place where one could find the Big Apple? But she could not even see a single tree.
In the afternoon, Daddy took them to a theater. Instead of cartoons before the movie, some ladies came on stage and kicked their bare legs up and down, so orderly like soldiers in a parade. Vera looked for strings that must be pulling the limbs like in a puppet show. She saw none.
The family moved out of the hotel on the following day and went into a huge building. Its inside was big enough to fit a couple of movie theaters. The ceiling was so high. Vera saw a pigeon flying up there. What if it pooped? There were so many people down below! On the far end there was a row of swinging doors through which some railroad cars were parked. They got onto one. It was different from the one they rode in from Ottawa. There were beds and toilets in the compartments and curtains on the big windows. Suddenly the car started to move. Vera could not hear any sound and did not see a locomotive. It slid like skaters on ice.
Suddenly she saw nothing but darkness. A few minutes later, sceneries started popping up frame after frame outside the big window like in a movie. Buildings appeared and vanished, followed by bridges, roads, woods, rivers and wide-open plains. The click-a-di-clack sound on the track soon put her to sleep. When she woke up, it was dark outside. Daddy and Mother took everybody to a separate car. There were tables with white tablecloth just like in a restaurant. The men serving them all wore white jackets. The train ran for days and the clink-a-di-clack sound went on and on. The scenery outside of the windows kept changing, from green meadows to desert then to mountains. There were no place for her to run around. All they did was going back and forth between their compartments and the dining car.
episodes 0４ Gold Mountain, November 1937
episodes 0４ Gold Mountain, November 1937
The train finally ran out of tracks to run. It stopped at a waterfront at the foot of a hilly city. To Vera who used to see only flat land, the hills were tall mountains covered with houses. Some of the houses looked like clothes hung on clotheslines, some looked like rock pinnacles. Tramcars were pulled up the steep hills by cables. The hotel they checked into had its main entrance on one floor and its back entrance two floors down on another street.
At the foot of the hills there was a big body of water that was larger than any lake she had ever seen. There were many ships and bridges on the water. The big ship Vera and her family later boarded had two black chimneys of the size of silos wrapped in red ribbons.
SS President Hoover Launched in 1930
“Is it a bank?” Vera asked.
“No, that’s a ship,” her Daddy said.
“Why are there dollar signs on the ribbons?”
“That’s the name of the company that owns the ship.”
“You mean dollar owns this ship? Then why don’t they put its picture on the dollar bill instead of an old woman’s head?”
“This Dollar has nothing to do with the dollar bill. The picture on the dollar bill is a man, not a woman. He is President Washington.”
“No, it is President Hoover. Look, it is written on its neck, I mean collar.”
“That’s the name of the ship.”
“Is that why all the denominations of the American money bills have pictures of their presidents? But why it says San Francisco?”
“Where do you see that?”
“On its fanny.”
“You mean on the stern. What’s painted on the stern is the homeport of the ship.”
“Whatever you say, I still think it is a bank,” Vera insisted stubbornly. “It’s so big. It must carry lots of silver and gold.”
“Come to think of it, you may be right,” her Daddy laughed and went along with his daughter. “The Chinese did not call this city Gold Mountain for no reason. San Francisco was at one time a gold rushing town. The gold found here had to be sent out by ships. There were no railroads then.”
“Shipped to where?”
“All around the world. Some to China. On their return voyages, they brought the Chinese. All the Chinese who came here had something to do with gold.”
“Did you come through here too, Daddy?”
“I not only came through here. I stayed here for quite a while.”
“To rush for gold?”
“No,” her father laughed. “I worked in the Chinese consulate here.”
“What did you do?”
“I represented the Chinese who came to dig for gold or to build railroads that connected the West coast of America to its East Coast.”
“Are you the first one in our family to come to America?”
“No, my Big Uncle came before me.”
“Did he come to dig for gold?”
“No, he came to set up the Chinese Consulate here.”
“The one you worked in?” she kept on asking curiously.
“Yes, but way before I came. China was still ruled by a monarchy then.”
“What is a monarchy?”
“A country ruled by an emperor.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Let’s see. This is 1937. The monarchy was overthrown in 1911. So it is roughly...”
“26 years ago.”
“Good girl, Vera!”
The ship looked more beautiful than anything she had seen. Besides the two big chimneys wrapped in ribbons, it had two tall flagpoles decorated with a string of colored flags between them. It looked like a feathered duck with a head and a tail.
The ship was so big that once on board, Vera felt like walking on one of the streets in the Big Apple. There were many turns and alleys. There were doors open to a hotel, a dance hall, a movie theater, a library, a restaurant, a playground with a sand box and many more doors that were closed to kids. She was told there was even a swimming pool! One could get lost easily.
“If you do, just ask any person in uniform,” said her mother. “He will take you back to your cabin. But remember, always stay inside. Don’t go out to the deck. I don’t want you to fall off the ship.”
“You mean we can go anywhere without tagging to you or Daddy?”
“Yes. Now come out to the deck with me.”
“Didn’t you just say we are not supposed to go out on deck?”
“Hurry up. The ship is leaving.”
“But we are already on board, Mama.”
“Just come. Don’t act smart.”
She followed her mother out to the promenade deck. She found herself high above the dock. She looked down. There was a brass band playing. There were lots of people down there. They were holding some color paper ribbons in their hands. On the other ends of the ribbons were their friends and relatives on board the ship. How could paper hold up such a big ship? Soon the ribbons all broke like strings of cheese when a pizza was broken up. The ship drifted slowly away from the dock. The ship sailed passed the hills that was covered with houses toward a huge structure in red. Will the ship’s flagpoles fit under the bridge, she wondered.
“My God, look at that!” her mother exclaimed. “It was not here when I sailed through here last time.”
“What is it for, Mama?”
“To bridge the two shores so that people do not have to take the ferry to cross the bay.”
“Why would people prefer to get on the bridge?”
“So that they could tell ‘the tale of Two Cities’,” Mother chuckled as she answered.
“What would they do if the bridge collapsed?”
“Go back to the ‘fairy’ book, I guess,” she laughed out aloud.
“You mean ferry boat, Mama,” corrected Vera , thinking that her mother had too much to drink at the Welcome-Aboard party.
A few minutes later, they were under the red structure. Like the buildings in the Big Apple, its tops were hidden in the clouds. Beyond this monstrous structure, there was nothing but an endless span of water.
“Let’s go inside.”
episodes 0５ At Sea On SS President Hoover, November - December, 1937
episodes 0５ At Sea On SS President Hoover, November - December, 1937
The ship was at sea for days. There was nothing to see but water. Then it came into a port. This place was totally different from either the Big Apple or the Gold Mountain. There were no skyscrapers and no hills, just a spread of lowly built wooden houses. Some scantily dressed girls in underwear and straw skirts danced on the dock to the music played on some instruments that looked like miniature toy guitars. There were flowers everywhere, from the girls’ heads to the musicians’ necks to the bushes along the streets. The dancers waved their hands like the leaves on the palm trees next to them and shook their skirts like peacocks shaking their feathers.
Even though it was late November, people had on very thin clothes, men in airy flowery shirts hanging outside of their pants and women baring their shoulders, legs and tummies. Some people were even in bare feet.
Daddy took the family to a beach. It was the first time Vera had ever seen a beach. It was like a huge tilted sand box with one side submerged in water. The dry sand was soft like flour. No wonder they could not build any big houses here. Even the palm trees could not all stand straight up. She was more interested in picking seashells and running after sand crabs than going into the water. There would be plenty of oceans later on. Daddy said the ship would be at sea for several weeks.
Sure enough, once the ship left port, she saw nothing but ocean all around her. Since Mother said not to go on deck, she could only look through the windows. There was not much to see anyway, except for the rolling waves with white caps, and a sky with scattered clouds that continued to change colors. The line that marked the division of water and sky moved continuously up and down viewed through the windows. It made her feel drowsy.
But the inside the ship, it was another world. It was like a city. The train could probably run in it. With the permission to roam around anywhere freely without the supervision of the parents, Vera and Vickie felt they had the whole world to themselves. Every day was an adventure. Every adventure led them to some place new.
One day they came upon a door hidden away from the main drag. She tried the knob. It opened. They went in.
The place was filled with racks of shelves from floor to ceiling. The shelves were filled with Christmas ornaments; some in boxes and some just lay unwrapped. Racks after racks of them. There were many decorations they had never seen before. As they wandered from rack to rack, they sometimes fantasized they were in Lilliput in Gulliver’s Travel and sometimes in Alice’s Wonderland. It was too early for Christmas trees. They might not have a Christmas this year. But this was better than any Christmas tree. So the girls continued to explore. They finally exhausted themselves in excitement and fell asleep in a cozy corner.
Vera did not know how long she had slept until some voices woke her up.
“Did you find out where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Is that the only place?”
“Yes.”
“You had better be damn sure that there is not another place.”
“I’ll check again.”
“Do that. We’ll meet here again tomorrow at this time.”
“Tomorrow is too soon. This is a big ship.”
“Then in two days. We’ve got lots of time.”
As the two men were leaving the room, Vera peeked out between the racks for a look. One was in a sailor’s uniform, one in a white steward’s jacket. Luckily they did not notice her. What would they do to her if they found her here? Would she get a spanking? She shook her sister awake and whispered, “Vickie, let’s get out of this place.”
“Why do I have to dress up, Mama?”
“We are being invited to dine at the Captain’s table tonight.”
“Why?”
“The Captain wants to meet your Daddy.”
“Why do we have to go?”
“We are a family.”
“Will Ah-ma go?”
“No.”
“Why not? She’s family, isn’t she?”
“Who’s going to look after Virgie and Marina?”
Captain Yardley looked so distinguished in his white uniform with gold-embroidered cuffs. His charcoal-colored hair made him look intelligent. There were two other couples at the table. She was the only child. Mother left Vickie with Ah-ho after she threw a tantrum. So Vera told herself she had better behave like an adult.
The adults were chitchatting about trivialities that did not make any sense and toasting each other just to have a drink. After a few toasts, the Captain turned to Daddy and asked,
“May I ask what kind of business are you engaged in, Mr. Chow?”
“I was the Chinese Consul General in Ottawa.”
“Isn’t that where they have embassies from all over the world?”
“Yes. But China does not have one in Canada. So our Consulate also serves as an Embassy.”
“May I address you Ambassador Chow?”
“In name only,” chuckled her Daddy in modest.
“Being a diplomat you must speak many foreign languages.”
“Just English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and some French. My wife also speaks Tagalog and Spanish.”
“You have a beautiful wife, Your Excellency.”
Beautiful? The little girl took a good look at her mother. All she saw was the same short-tempered mother hidden behind some fancy clothes and glittering jewelries. Then she heard her Daddy responding,
“Thank you for the kind words, Sir. You have a beautiful ship.”
“She’s Robert Dollar’s prize lady, the most luxurious and fastest in the world. She runs at 20 knots with twin propellers driven by the newest turbo-electric motors made by General Electric.”
“But why is she called a mail ship?”
“She was built for mail.”
“Just for mail?”
“You couldn’t imagine what mail carries these days.” Leaning forward to Daddy and lowering his voice, Capt. Yardley said, “Just between you and I and the ship mast, we are carrying one ton of gold on this trip.”
“One ton!”
“Please keep this to yourself, Your Excellency.”
“Of course, Sir. I’ll keep it just between you and I and these bulkheads.”
The two men broke out laughing.
“Let us have a toast to both ladies!” said Capt. Yardley.
“As we say in Canada,” rising his glass, Daddy said. “A la santé des dames! Ganbei!”
After that the two men kept on laughing and toasting on one thing after another.
What kind of conversation is that? Did they get too much to drink? If it is a male ship, why is it referred to as she? Isn’t gold for ladies, to make bracelets and necklaces? What does gold have to do with the Chinese dumpling wonton? In any case, from now on she has better refer the ship as she. Mr. Dollar sure has taste. She is beautiful.
As time dragged on, the conversation around the table got more and more boring. Her attention soon shifted to the stewards who were serving at the table. There were so many of them. They all wore white jackets. She wondered which one was the voice she heard in that Christmas storage room. She couldn’t wait to sneak back to eavesdrop on their secret talk. Two days was a long time to wait.
The girls sneaked back into their hide-out before the meet up time. Then came the voices they were waiting for.
“Did you find out?”
“That was the only place.”
“Are you sure?”
“Definitely.”
“Did you see what they have inside that room?”
“Yes.”
“Can you handle it?”
“No problem.”
“Then the next thing to do is to find out about the protocol.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Don’t just say not too hard. How do you propose to do it?”
“Leave that to me. You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”
“Let’s meet two days from now.”
“Same time?”
Vera caught a better glimpse of the two men this time. The one in sailor’s outfit walked with a slight limp. He was half a head shorter than the one in white jacket.
“Vickie, from now on watch how all the sailors on this ship walk,” she said to her sister. This was probably the most serious endeavor she had ever engaged in her life. “When you notice a limp, look at the face and remember it. Now let’s follow them.”
They quickly came out of their hiding and followed the two men at a distance. But after a few turns, the man with a limp went out to the deck. Mama said not to go out on deck. When the girls turned around, the white jacket steward was nowhere to be seen. Worse yet, they did not know where they were.
She was not worried. Mother had told them to ask a uniformed person if they got lost. She found one.
“Mister, can you please tell us where we are?”
“Are you lost, little girls?”
“No, we are just wandering,” Vera corrected the man. “Besides, we are not little girls.”
“Excuse me, ladies. I don’t mean that. I mean... I mean to ask if you have lost your little sisters. They could be playing at the sand box.”
“We know where it is.” But how does he know we have two little sisters? Could he be...?
“Do you know on this ship we have the best sandbox for kids?” Asked the man in the white jacket.
“Better than on any other ship in the world?”
“You bet. Let me take you there. By the way, my name is Jerry. What’s yours?”
After they told him their names, he said to them, “Follow me.”
When they got to the sandbox, the man said, “Let’s see who can pick the most color beads from the sand in a minute. No sand. Ready? Go!”
After they counted the beads in each person’s hand, the man in white jacket asked them, “Now you know how to get back to your cabin?”
“Yes. Thank you, Jerry.”
Could he be the one in the storage room? Definitely not. They liked him.
They looked up Jerry the next day. He told them he could not play with them because he had to work. So they just tagged along while he walked through the entire ship checking on all the safety devices. They could not believe their eyes when they came to a room glittering in gold.
First Class Lounge
“It looks like the Russian palace in the movie!” They cried out.
“Sh-, keep your voice down,” said Jerry. “You girls are not supposed to be in here.”
On the following day, they looked up their friend, Jerry, again. He was polishing the brass handles and doorknobs. The girls put on some cotton gloves and joined him. Then they came to the landing of stairs. There was a big clock. Vera took a look at it and yelled, “Vickie, we have to go!”
“Let me show you the swimming pool,” Jerry said.
“Not now. We have an appointment.”
“That reminded me I had to go meet someone too. Let’s meet here tomorrow.”
Meet here tomorrow? That expression sounded so familiar.
“Could Jerry be one of the men in that storage room? ” Vickie asked.
“We’ll see,” said Vera. “ Now that we know Jerry’s voice.”
“Have you found out about the contact protocol?”
That was definitely not Jerry’s voice.
“Yes.”
That was not his voice either. Even counting Jerry out, there were still so many sailors and stewards. Jerry told them that the ship had a crew of 300. Perhaps she could enlist Jerry into her secret investigation.
“Good. We must maintain uninterrupted contact with shore during the whole time from Rendezvous to Drop,” the first voice went on.
“When?”
“We don’t know how long the ship will stay at Kobe. I’ll let you know once we leave port.”
Then the two men parted abruptly without setting a date. Now how was she going to find out when they would meet again?
“Where is Kobe, Daddy?” Vera asked.
“It’s a port in Japan.”
“Can we go ashore?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“China and Japan are at war with each other.”
“Why?”
“Just about five months ago the Japanese troops marched over a bridge into a Chinese city. The Chinese tried to stop them. They fought back. Then the war started.”
“What’s the name of the bridge?”
“Marco Polo Bridge.”
“Wasn’t Marco Polo an Italian?”
“Yes.”
“An Italian bridge in China?” Vera asked in confusion.
“You see, foreigners in China like to hear names they are familiar with, not in Chinese.”
“Why did the Japanese want to go into the city in the first place?”
“They said they were looking for a soldier missing at a morning role call.”
“Did they find him?”
“That was not the point. It was a pretense the Japanese made up to launch an attack on China.”
“What if China did not try to stop them?”
“That would give them an excuse to march through the entire China.”
“Just to look for a missing soldier?”
“Yes.”
“What if they found the soldier?”
“I doubt if there were such a soldier. Well, if they did, they would think of some other reason to march on.”
“What other reason?”
“Such as asking China to pay for expense of their operation in looking for the missing soldier.”
“Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“You think that is ridiculous? Why do you think the Chinese airplane bombed this ship?”
“They did?”
“In Shanghai.”
“When?”
“Just three months before we came on board.”
“How did it happen?”
“China hired an American general to run its air force against the Japanese. The first order the American general gave was to bomb this ship.”
“Why?”
“No one knows.”
“Is America a friend of China?”
“They said they are. But they keeps on selling scrap irons to Japan.”
“What’s wrong with that? They are scrap.”
“All those warships and tanks that invaded China were made of the scrap iron supplied by America.”
“Oh, I know. They bombed this ship to make it into another scrap so that they could sell it, I mean her, to Japan?”
“I don’t think so,” her father said in deep thought. “I sure hope not.”
“What’s the general’s name?”
“Chennault.”
“Did China put him in jail?”
“No, he was awarded ten thousand American dollars.”
“Why?”
“No one knows.”
“By whom?”
“Chiang Kai-Shek.”
“Who is he?”
“The acting president of China. By the way, he is a friend of Robert Dollar, the owner of this ship.”
“How did he explain this to his friend?”
“Gen. Chennault is his wife’s pet.”
“What did the president say?”
“China has no president.”
“Daddy, what is protocol?”
The ship finally left Japan. The two men did not say when they were going to meet. But the next meeting must be crucial. The girls did not want to miss that. So they went to hide in their secret corner everyday at that time as soon as the ship disembarked to sea. Then one day, they heard the voices.
“Did you find out about the rendezvous time?”
“There is a complication.”
“What?”
“The ship is not going through the Strait.”
“What shall we do?”
“Dirks will let us know as soon as he finds out about the new course.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.
“We meet at the same time?”
“Right.”
“What is a strait, Daddy?” Vera asked her father the next day.
“What are you talking about?”
“The strait for a ship I suppose.”
“A strait is a narrow body of water between two land masses such as the English Channel between England and France.”
“What’s the difference between a strait and a channel?”
“A strait is a longer channel.”
“Is there one for our ship to go through?”
“Well, the only one I can think of is Formosa Strait.”
“Where is Formosa?”
“It is an island off the China coast named Taiwan. It had been colonized by the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch. Colonialists liked to call the places they occupied tin their own languages. The Portuguese called it Formosa, meaning “beautiful island”. Then in the year 1661, a patriotic Chinese pirate named Zheng Cheng-Gong took it back from the Dutch. It’s name has since reversed back to Taiwan. When the Japanese annexed it in 1895, they retained the name. But Westerners continue to all it Formosa. You get it?”
How could her father expect her to understand all this politics?
“So is Formosa Strait Chinese or Japanese?” she asked.
“Chinese,” said the Consul General emphatically. “We call it Taiwan Strait.”
It all made sense now. If this ship was bombed in the Chinese territory before, of course, the captain would not want to risk the tragedy happening again. That is why he was trying to stay away from the Chinese waters.
“The captain has charted a new course for the ship to the waters east of Formosa,” one voice said to the other.
“Will this take longer for us to reach the Rendezvous?”
“No. In fact it will be more direct to Rendezvous. But the waters are going to be rougher.”
“Why?”
“It’s an open ocean instead of a strait. There will be more chance for us to get into the way of a typhoon. Do you get seasick?”
“No.”
“Good. I don’t want you to get seasick. It is crucial that we maintain uninterrupted contact with port authority in Manila at all time. During the time between Rendezvous and Drop, people must think we are still en route to Manila. No one, on land or on board, should suspect of anything abnormal is going on. If you see anyone suspicious, eliminate him.”
“How long will it take from Rendezvous to Drop-off?”
“Same time as to Manila.”
“Where is Drop-off?”
“San Miguel.”
“How many hours?”
“Assuming she keeps at 20 knots, it will take twenty-one hours. But I can’t tell if there will be any delay in the handling of the cargo at Rendezvous. Let me take care of it. You just keep the ship-to-shore communication going so that they do not suspect we are not en-route to Manila. Have you been listening on their communication?”
“Yes.”
“You sure you can handle the protocol?”
“Not just the protocol, I can imitate the radio operator’s wrist rhythm exactly.”
“Good!”
“Are we going to Manila, Daddy?” Vera asked her father to make sure she had heard correctly.
“Yes.”
“What is Rendezvous?”
“It’s a French word for meeting. As for place, it could be anywhere agreed upon by the people who are going to meet.”
“Are we going to stop anywhere in between?”
“No.”
“Why are we going to Manila?”
“That’s Mama’s home, where Grandma lives.”
“Where is San Miguel?”
“Where did you hear that?” The man was surprised to hear it from his 7-year-old daughter.
“I heard a steward mentioning it.”
“That’s the trade name of a beer.”
“Made in Manila?”
“Yes. It is owned by Gen. McArthur.”
“Who’s Gen. McArthur?”
“The American general in charge of the Philippines.”
“Is Philippines Philippine or American?”
“Well, it used to belong to the Spanish,” Daddy cleared his throat and said. “Then...”
Oh no! Not another lecture! Thought the little girl. Now everything seems to fall into its place... Japanese marching over Marco Polo Bridge... An American ship being bombed by Chinese planes... Chinese planes being ordered by an American general... A Philippine brewery owned by an American general... But where is Rendezvous? What is the cargo? Why will there be a delay to handle the cargo? Why can’t they leave it in the ship’s safe? Isn’t a safe the safest place to keep silver and gold? Unless the cargo is something else more valuable than gold? Who is the man who walks with a limp? Who is the man in white? Are they pirates? Are our lives in danger?
“... Spain had a war with America…” her father continued. But Vera was not paying any attention to Daddy’s lecture-styled answer any more. She was wondering whether she should tell her father what she had heard and what had been going through her mind during these past days. Then the deck under her feet started to swing. She felt that everything in her stomach was going to empty out. The ship must be on the open ocean as one of the men said. She tried to hold it down. But she had be at the stockroom where the two men were to meet. That was more important, about the Rendezvous. She could not miss it. Vickie and Ah-ho were either sound asleep or knocked out by seasickness. She tried to fight against her own nausea and got up. She wobbled to the stockroom.
“Listen,” the familiar voice of the sailor now sounded like that of a commander. “There will be a farewell party for the First Class passenger tonight. The captain and the officers will all be there. By midnight, they will probably be all drunk or returned to their cabins. Let us give them two more hours. Then we will start at 02:00. Dirks will take over the bridge. I will take care of the cargo. I’ll leave communication to you and Roberts. Now let’s synchronize our watches.”
Wow! Isn’t that high sea piracy? I must tell Daddy.
She ran out of the stockroom, unseen by the two men. But instead of going to Daddy and Mama’s cabin, she went straight to the bathroom in her cabin and threw up. What came out of her mouth was some green smelling stuff. Was that her intestines? Was she going to die? She felt dizzy and fell into her bunk. She felt like the whole earth was turning upside down and emptying everything out. Is there still a piece of dry land that is not submerged by this raging waters? What about those men in the stockroom? Are they still trying to get the ship to San Miguel? She should get up...
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“What’s that, Ah-ma!” Vera sat up in her bunk and asked while the ship rolled to one side.
“Go back to sleep. It’s still dark outside.”
But the ship did not right herself as she had been doing all this time! The roll just froze like the waterfall in winter back in Canada, like the film getting stuck on a frame in a movie theater. Was she dreaming? She was not feeling seasick any more.
She looked out the window. It was pitch dark as Ah-ma said. Suddenly the sea lit up. A moment later, a streak of light flew across the sky. Then darkness returned. A few minutes later, another streak of light cut across the sky. This went on for quite a while. The ship remained tilted and frozen in place.
Then there came a loud voice,
“Attention, all passengers and crew. Get out of your cabin and workstations. You will be guided to your assigned area on deck.”
“Go get Ambassador Chow to the bridge,” Capt. Yardley said to his Chief Executive Officer.
As soon as the Chinese Consul General was escorted to the bridge, the captain said, “Your Excellency, I beg your pardon for the inconvenience to drag you up here. As you could see, we have a situation.”
“Where are we, Sir?” the diplomat asked.
“We are aground on Hoishoto.”
SS President Hoover at Hoishoto, December 11, 1937
“Where is that?”
“It’s an island off the eastern coast of Formosa.”
“How long are we going to be here?”
“For quite a while I’m afraid. Exactly how long, that’s anybody’s guess. But I have a more urgent problem on hand.”
“Is she going to sink?”
“That’s not the problem. She’s on solid reef.” Pointing out of the big windows the captain said, “You see those ships out there?”
USS Barker and USS Alden at Hoishoto, December 12, 1937
“They look like some kind of naval ships.”
“You are exactly right. Look, there are four of them, two Japanese and two American.”
“What are they doing here?” the Chinese Consul General asked.
“This morning the Japanese bombed an American warship, USS Panay, sinking the ship and killing three sailors and wounded 48.”
“Here?”
“No, in the Yangtze River near Shanghai.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“It took place less than twelve hours after we got on this island.”
“Really?”
“Why do you think those two Japanese warships showed up instantly? Look, the covers on all their big guns are taken off.”
“What does that mean?”
“Whatever they have in mind, I have the lives of 503 passengers and 330 crew to think about. Many of the passengers are very important people in the financial sector of our country.”
“I realized that,” the Chinese Consul General nodded thoughtfully. “I remember talking to some bankers the other night.”
“Hoishoto being a prison island. The English translation of Hoishoto is Inferno Island.”
“So?”
“It is for holding prisoners. Now you see why the Japanese wasted no time to dispatch their warships?”
“But we are just a passenger ship.”
“That’s exactly the point. Why would an American passenger ship sail so close to a politically sensitive island while there is a wide safe water out in the Pacific?”
“I see your point,” said the diplomat.
“There must be jailers on the island. We tried to communicate with them as soon as we got aground. But none of their responses made any sense. I need your help, Your Excellency.”
“How can I help?”
“I must get these people on board off to shore before something more drastic takes place.”
“What do you want me to do, Sir?”
“I understand you speak Japanese.”
“Yes.”
“Can you go ashore with me?”
“At your service, Sir.”
“That will be greatly appreciated by my government and Mr. Dollar, Your Excellency.”
“Can we go inside, Mama?” Vera pleaded. “I’m cold.”
“Can’t you see what’s going on inside?” her mother pointed to some rowdy sailors. “Listen to that yelling. Do you see that man with a pistol in his hand?”
“I think he’s the purser!”
“Assistant purser,” her mother corrected her.
Come to think of it, could he be one of the men who came to the storage room?
“Is he a bad guy?”
“No, he is trying to handle the situation.”
“What situation?”
“How would I know?”
“Are they pirates?”
“They are part of the crew. Look, they are all in uniform.”
“Why are they fighting each other?”
“I was told that a lot of the sailors did not belong to this ship. They were hired at the last minute just for this trip because some of the original crew were on strike.”
“You mean they were Shanghaied.”
“You are very imaginative, Vera. They were not Shanghaied. They are temporary hired hands. Who knows who they really are?”
Then her mother went to help Ah-ho to take care of her two little sisters.
“Big Sis, I just saw that guy.”
“How do you know it was he?”
“He walked with a limp.”
“Where?”
“He just walked into the First Class Lounge.”
“By himself?”
“With some men. Shall we tell Daddy?”
“Tell Daddy what?”
“What we heard in the storage room.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter any more. Besides, we’ll get scolded.”
“For what?”
“Making up stories.”
“But we did not make it up.”
“No one will believe us, Vickie!”
“What if these pirates really take control of the ship? What about Drop?”
“The ship can’t go anywhere. Can’t you see?”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you see Daddy go ashore with Capt. Yardley? She’s stuck on the reef.”
“What is Daddy doing?”
“To help the Captain in handling the situation.”
“What situation?”
“How would I know?”
“How could Daddy help?”
“Use diplomacy.”
“When Daddy gets the ship off the reef, I mean helps the captain in handling the situation, the pirates can still take her to Rendezvous, can’t they?”
“You mean San Miguel.”
“Is Rendezvous in San Miguel?”
“Listen carefully, Vickie. We shall never mention this to anyone.”
“What if someone finds out that we knew what the pirates were plotting and did not say anything?”
“If we don’t tell anyone, no one will ever find out. It would appear as if nothing has ever happened. Swear you won’t tell anyone.”
“I swear.”
“Cross your heart.”
Vickie made the sign of the cross.
episodes 0６ On River Danube Aboard MS River Harmony, November 1, 2018
episodes 0６ On River Danube Aboard MS River Harmony, November 1, 2018
As the River Harmony sailed smoothly down the Danube, the colorful fall continued to unfold itself against a setting sun.
“Where did your father shipwrecked, Susie?” Vera came out of her reminiscence and asked the lady sitting across the table. She noticed that the lady had already finished her desert and was drinking her coffee.
“Somewhere on the China coast.”
“Do you know the name of the place?”
“My father told me it was a small island no one had ever heard of.”
“Hoishoto?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Do you know the name of the ship?”
“Dad must have told me. But I don’t remember.”
“Does President Hoover sound familiar?”
“That’s it!” Susie’s raised hand came down so hard on her husband’s arm that it knocked his coffee all over the table. “Didn’t I tell you it was President somebody, Honey? President Hoover. That’s right. I can’t believe it! Hey, Vera, how did you know that?”
“I figured, eighty-one years ago, it had to be the President Hoover. That was the ship I was shipwrecked on.”
“You got to be kidding!”
“What else did your dad tell you besides the name of the ship?” asked Vera.
“He must have told that story an umpteen times. But I never listened to it. Look, I had never been interested in ships until I started to cruise after my retirement.”
“Are you interested to know what happened?” Vera asked.
“Of course! But...”
“Come to my cabin.”
Vera brought out her computer and clicked on the website www.takaoclub.com/hoover/hoover.htm. There popped up an article entitled “The Wreck of the SS President Hoover”
“Oh, my God! Look at that ship. That’s my dad’s ship? So small!” she felt as though she was on board. She could not wait to read what the article said.
“It was a mail ship,” said Vera. “They did not have cruise ship in those days. Skip it. It’s all about the ship. You can read it later. Click on Part II.”
Susie did. Just a second later she jumped up yelling in excitement,
“That’s my dad!”
“Which one?”
“Not in the picture. The one who was telling the story. Listen to this: On board the USS President Hoover were two young Assistant Pursers, Eugene Lukes and Archer Moze... Look, Lukes is my maiden name. I can’t believe it! I can actually hear my dad’s voice telling the story!”
“Haven’t you heard some of it before?”
“No.”
“Then go on.”
“Gene Lukes begins the story: It was wintertime and a strong monsoon was blowing. The Captain was getting these messages, ‘You must be in Manila, absolutely urgent that you arrive not later than 6 a.m. on the 12th of December, make all possible speed.’”
Hearing these words in the voice of the man’s daughter, Vera was brought back to the Christmas stockroom on board the ship. Then she heard the voice continue on,
“We were zooming along southward to the eastward side of the island of Formosa controlled by the Japanese, who had turned out all the navigation lights. So we were sailing on what was called dead reckoning. Well, winds and seas are not always that predictable and about midnight we appeared close to shore and hit a peninsula. Arch and I were in bed, and I felt this bump and then all of a sudden I heard, boom, boom, boom...”
Vera jumped. She not only heard it. She could feel it. The reader took her eyes away from the screen and asked.
“Are you all right, Vera?”
“Yes, yes. Please go on reading.”
“Later, an unruly group of crew members on board had reportedly broken into the ship’s bar and begun to party. The Chief Purser sent me to the first class smoking room where the slot machines were. He gave me his pistol and told me...”
“I remember seeing a person with a pistol!” Vera interrupted excitedly.
“That must be my father!” said Susie with equal excitement.
“Victoria also saw the person who walked with a limp...” she stopped short of finishing the sentence.
“What did you say, a person walking with a limp?”
“Never mind.”
“Who’s Victoria?”
“My sister. Please go on.”
“Where was I?” asked Susie. “Ah, here it is: On the 13th of December the SS President McKinley arrived and the following day departed to Manila carrying 700 passengers and crew of SS President Hoover.”
Susie lifted up her face from the plasma panel. Her eyes were moist. They moved to fix on Vera’s face but saw her father’s face instead.
“Happy birthday, Dad,” Susie whispered. Then she pointed at the picture and asked, “Were you among them, Vera?”
“I guess so.”
Passengers boarding SS President McKinley
“How did you get from there to China?”
“That’s another story.”
The End
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