The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 8

Chapter 8Katharina’s green eyes flashed and tightened. She

was as agitated as I had ever seen her. Finally, she slapped the

ship’s railing with her open hand and looked at me intently.

“I have just learned that a detective is on

board down in second class, and he has been engaged to kidnap me.

Can you believe it? Didn’t I tell you something was afoot?”

I didn’t say anything. Instead, I stared out

at the now-calm ocean and wished I were somewhere else. Katharina

looked at me; her jaw clenched.

“Well? Have you nothing to say?”

I took a deep breath and turned to face her.

“I doubt if a Detective is going to kidnap you. It’s not what they

do. More than likely, he has been hired to follow you, to keep

track of your movements and people with whom you interact.

Katharina was not having any of my

explanations.

“I must say, William, I am puzzled by your

nonchalant attitude. This man is the same man who followed us in

Honolulu, and he was seen talking to two representatives of the

German government at the pier. Don’t you think that is a bit

suspicious?”

Katharina had moved away from the railing

and now stood facing me, hands on hips, scowling and tapping her

foot. She was obviously disappointed that I hadn’t reacted with

more apprehension regarding the news she had just shared.

I wondered if I should tell Katharina about

my meetings with Eichel and the note he gave me. Instead, I asked

her from whom she had learned about the Pinkerton Detective and if

she knew his name.

“I have my spies,” she said. “As for my

source, a ship is nothing more than a natter factory. Information

is always available as an article of trade if you are willing to

spend the money.”

She was right about that. I wondered if

Potts had been talking to her but decided against that conclusion.

Potts was not the kind to gossip—not when I was adding liberally to

his weekly income.

“So what’s this fellow’s name, and why would

he want to kidnap you in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? There

aren’t many places he could hide you on the China.”

Katharina glared at me and then turned away

and shook her head. When she turned back, her eyes were stony, and

her voice was decidedly lower and more measured.

“I didn’t say he was going to kidnap me

aboard the China. But why am I telling you any of this? You

apparently have decided to detach yourself from the problem.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Katharina waved a hand at me, backed away a

couple of steps, and looked at me with a watery smile.

“It’s okay, William. Let’s just forget the

whole thing.” With that, she turned and walked swiftly away. I

wanted to shout for her to stop, but I didn’t. Instead, I watched

her until she turned the corner and disappeared toward the port

side of the ship. I felt relieved. I had actually managed to

separate myself from Katharina’s troubles. Or had I?

I still had the note allegedly written by

her late husband. And I hadn’t been forthcoming about Eichel. I

began to feel guilty for not telling Katharina about my two

conversations with Eichel. For a moment, I thought about going to

her cabin and coming clean. But I decided against that option. I

would wait another day or so to see what developed.

I had mixed feelings about Katharina. I

found myself liking her. Nevertheless, at the same time, I was

determined not to be manipulated by her beauty. This dazzlingly

gorgeous woman was used to having things her own way. No doubt, men

had been groveling at her feet since she reached puberty. I was not

going to be one of them.

I returned to my cabin and rang for Potts.

When he arrived, I asked him if he knew how Katharina had found out

that Eichel was a passenger in second class.

“I wasn’t aware she ’ad,” Potts said. “Let

me do some sleuthin’, an’ I’ll let yew know what I find out.” It

was obvious that Potts was as surprised by that revelation as I had

been.

I avoided the dining room that evening.

Instead, I had a sandwich and beer in the small cafe and returned

to my cabin. I didn’t want to run into Katharina again. We were due

to dock in Yokohama the following day, and I found myself worrying

about Katharina even though I didn’t want to. Would she disembark,

or would she remain on board, fearful of being kidnaped while on

dry land? The layover in Yokohama was to be one day to load

provisions and other supplies, and then it was on to Nagasaki on

the southern Japanese island of Kyushu where we would take on

coal.

I slept fitfully that night and was up by

six o’clock. After a few turns around the promenade deck, I entered

the main dining room for breakfast. I spent several minutes

studying the breakfast menu, which, as usual, was beyond

generous.

There were the usual items: bananas,

oranges, oatmeal, fresh milk, Saratoga potatoes, Béchamel potatoes,

ham, bacon, eggs to order, omelet with asparagus, buckwheat cakes,

smoked ham, Vienna rolls, marmalade, coffee, tea, chocolate, and

cocoa.

Then there were the unusual items: fried

kingfish, Vienna veal steak, onion sauce, Frankfurt sausages,

horseradish sauce, lamb stew, and German beefsteaks broiled and

fried.

I was still looking at the copious menu when

I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Good morning, William. May I join you for

breakfast?” It was Katharina.

After we had settled at a table, Katharina

apologized for walking away abruptly the day before. I apologized

for my behavior also, though I wasn’t sure why. Our conversation

avoided the topic of the Pinkerton detective, and I made sure I

didn’t tip my hand about Eichel or the baron’s alleged note.

We agreed to meet later when the ship docked

at Yokohama and disembark together as we had in Honolulu.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Katharina said. “I

don’t feel comfortable leaving the ship on my own.”

The ship docked at the newly constructed

Osanbashi Pier, and Katharina and I took a sightseeing carriage to

the hilly Yamate area of Yokohama with its European- and

Victorian-style mansions, churches, and parks. We ate lunch at a

small noodle shop along Benten Dori—a busy shop-lined avenue

heaving with Japanese men and women in traditional kimonos. A

sprinkling of foreign men and women in suits and afternoon dresses

strolled past. For a moment, I thought I spotted Eichel among the

foreigners, but I wasn’t sure.

Later, after some three hours of touring

Yokohama and an area called Negishi, with its thatched farmhouses,

lush rice paddies, and the white cliffs of Honmoku in the distance,

our carriage driver took us past the block-long Nectarine number 9

brothel. There, dozens of its courtesans displayed themselves to

potential clients by standing in open and outsized second-story

windows.

“Do you care to partake?” Katharina quipped

as our carriage moved past.

“I think I will forgo that pleasure for the

time being.”

“For the time being?”

“Yes, you never know what tomorrow will

bring.” That quip seemed to take the wind out of Katharina’s sails,

and she looked straight ahead as our carriage moved on toward the

magnificent Grand Hotel that rested along a wide road facing the

harbor called the Bund.

We stopped for dinner at the Grand and, in

so doing, met up with several other passengers who had the same

idea. Several of us shared a large table in the hotel dining room,

and we found ourselves engaged in some interesting dinner

conversation. A major topic was the Nectarine number 9 brothel that

had apparently been part of everybody’s tour.

“Did you know that place is so world famous

that even Rudyard Kipling wrote about it,” one of our male dinner

mates said. “It was mentioned along with a few other notorious

bordellos in a long poem called “McAndrew’s Hymn” published just

this year in Scribner’s Magazine.”

When no one acknowledged this news, the man

removed a piece of paper from his coat and read the relevant

portion of Kipling’s opus:

Years when I raked the ports wi’ pride to fill my

cup o’ wrong-

Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in

Hong-Kong!

Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I

abode -

Jane Harrigan’s an’ Number Nine, The Reddick an’

Grant Road!

Several of the women at the table wanted to

know more about the bagnios Kipling referred to in his elegy. But

none of the men had either been in any of the establishments or

were not willing to own up to it if they had been.

“You men are dry as dust,” Katharina said.

“Or are you just holding back for fear of offending those of us of

the feminine persuasion? I will wager it is the latter.”

There was some clearing of throats and a few

raspy denials from the male contingent, and then someone finally

changed the subject to the recent storm we all had endured aboard

the China. Dinner ended with a round of port and some

Japanese sweets.

It was dark when we finally pulled up to the

pier alongside the SS China. I helped Katharina down from

the coach, paid the driver, and then we boarded the ship. Deputy

Captain Partington greeted us as we entered the first-class deck

and informed us the ship would get underway around six in the

morning for the one-day voyage to Nagasaki.

“I hope you had a good time in Yokohama,”

Partington said, tipping his cap at Katharina.

“I did, but I am afraid Mr. Battles eschewed

an opportunity to indulge in the delights of the Nectarine number

9.”

Partington laughed at that. “Well, Baroness,

he wouldn’t be the first gentleman to do that, but given that

place’s reputation, I am sure he is in the minority.”

“Maybe next time, eh Mr. Battles?” Katharina

said. “Till tomorrow then.” I watched as she walked away to her

cabin.

When I awoke around seven the next morning,

the ship was already moving southwest toward the Nagasaki Peninsula

and the port of Nagasaki some five hundred nautical miles away. The

trip took about twenty-four hours. I didn’t see Katharina at all

during that time. I recall thinking it was a bit odd, but I was

relieved. If I didn’t see her, then I wouldn’t have to bring up

Eichel and the note he had given me.

As the SS China sailed into Nagasaki

harbor, I was astonished to see how the coaling process was

accomplished. Before we had even anchored, several bulky coal

barges approached us. After we had anchored, a crude scaffolding of

bamboo poles and ladders was attached to the ship’s hull. The

contraption rose from the water’s edge to the open hatches of the

ship’s coal bunkers located near the top of the hull.

I will never forget what happened next.

Dozens of young teenage girls climbed up the scaffolding and took

their places on the rungs of the makeshift ladder until an unbroken

line of girls stretched from the barge below to the coalbunkers

some thirty feet above.

On the barges, men shoveled coal into

shallow half bushel baskets, which were then passed hand to hand

from girl to girl on the scaffolding. The first girl would seize a

basket and swing it straight up above her head where the girl above

her grabbed it and passed it on. The baskets of coal were handed

from girl to girl up the scaffolding until they were dumped into

the ship’s coalbunkers. The empty baskets were then passed down

back down to the barge by a line of small boys, where they were

refilled and sent back up.

I was mesmerized by this process, as was

just about every passenger on the ship. From the first and

second-class decks, passengers leaned over the railing to watch. I

had never seen anything like it; young girls and small boys engaged

in what could only be described as hazardous work. I fully expected

one of the girls or boys to plunge into the harbor at any minute.

Instead, the girls and boys laughed and talked as they moved

eighteen to twenty baskets from the barge to the coalbunkers every

minute. And so it went as one barge after another was emptied of

its load of coal and replaced by a full one.

“Quite amazing, isn’t it?” Partington said

as he walked up next to me at the ship’s railing. For a few

moments, we both watched the human conveyor belt move coal into the

vessel’s bunkers.

“It looks damned dangerous to me,” I

said.

Partington nodded. “Yes, but it’s the way

they do it here in Nagasaki. I have watched this practice for the

past three years, and I have yet to see an accident.”

“I am amazed… but then I find I am being

amazed a lot by what I see in this part of the world.”

“You never get used to it,” Partington said.

“There is nowhere quite like Asia. I plan to retire someday in

Singapore. That’s my favorite place in the world.”

The process continued for about six hours,

and afterward, Partington told me that the girls had deposited

about 1,600 tons of high-grade Kyushu coal into the ship’s bunkers.

That worked out, he said, to an average of some 228 tons per hour,

or about three tons per minute.

“The China consumes about forty tons

of coal per day, and time spent in port is time wasted,” Partington

explained. “So you can see how important it is to take on coal as

quickly as possible.”

Two hours later, the SS China was

under way, heading for Hong Kong. That meant another three days at

sea. I wasn’t looking forward to that prospect.

I rang for Potts and asked if he had seen

Katharina. He hadn’t. I hadn’t seen or heard from her for almost

thirty-six hours. That was not like Katharina.

“I’ll check ’er cabin. She may ’ave a baaaht

ov seasickness, innit,” Potts said.

Potts found me about an hour later as I was

coming out of the ship’s well-stocked library where I had borrowed

a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Eerie

Tales.

The expression on Potts’ face was gloomy.

“She ain’t in ’er cabin, an’ da steward who looks after ’er cabin

said ’er bed was not slept in last night.”

Potts’ news was a jolt. An intense surge of

guilt hit me full force and sent my mind reeling. I thought about

Eichel. Had he actually managed to abduct Katharina? It seemed

implausible. Had she fallen overboard? Not likely. Had she

disembarked in Nagasaki without telling me? Once again, that didn’t

seem like something she would do. Besides, we were only in Nagasaki

a few hours.

The two of us checked the music room, the

small cafe, the main dining room, and the smoking room, even though

I had never seen Katharina use tobacco. I returned to the library

and asked the ship’s librarian if Katharina had visited in the past

day or so. She hadn’t.

“She couldn’t just disappear,” I said after

Potts and I met up on the deck in front of my cabin.

Potts looked at me. “We’ll find ’er guvnor.

I ’ave a couple ov ideas.”

“I do too… and I think they may have

something to do with Eichel.”

Potts could see I was eager to head for the

second-class deck. I wondered aloud if I should find Deputy Captain

Partington or Captain Kreitz.

Potts shook his head emphatically. “No. Hold

on, guvnor. Give me a ’alf haaahr ter check wiv me mates. I’ll be

back…”

I was about to protest when Potts put his

hand on my arm. “Just a ’alf haaahr, okay?”

I agreed, and Potts moved off toward

amidships. I watched him disappear through a hatch to a restricted

“crew only” area. I returned to my cabin, loaded my Colt revolver,

and stuck it into my waistband. If we were going to the

second-class deck in search of Eichel, I was going to go armed.