Chapter VIII

IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH

It was thought that the earthquake had done away forever with the underground labyrinth of the Chinese quarter—those thousands of pens inhabited by creatures that shunned the light of day, those mole-holes which served as headquarters for a subterranean agitation, the mysterious methods of which have never been revealed to the eye of the white man. When had the old Chinatown been laid out; when had those hidden warehouses, those opium dens and hiding-places of the Mongolian proletariat been erected, those dens in which all manner of criminals celebrated their indescribable orgies and which silently hid all these evil-doers from the far-reaching arm of the police? When had the new Chinatown sprung up? When had the new quarter been provided with an endless network of subterranean passages, so that soon all was just as it had been before the earthquake? No one had paid any attention to these things. The Mongolian secret societies never paused for a moment in their invisible conspiracy against the ruling whites, and succeeded in creating a new underground world, over which the street traffic rolled on obliviously.

A narrow cellar entrance and greasy, slippery steps led into Hung Wapu's store, behind which there was a chop-house, which in turn led into an opium-den. The rooms behind the latter, from which daylight was forever excluded, were reserved for still worse things. No policeman would ever have succeeded in raiding these dens of iniquity; he would have found nothing but empty rooms or bunks filled with snoring Chinese; the abominable stench would soon have driven him out again, but if, by any chance, he had attempted to penetrate further and to explore the walls for the purpose of discovering hidden openings, the only result would have been a story in the next day's papers about a "missing" policeman.

Hung Wapu, whose plump face, with its enormous spectacles, resembled that of an old fat boarding-house keeper, was standing at the entrance to his cellar-shop late on the evening of May sixth. A disgusting odor and the murmur of many voices reached the street from the cellar. The policeman had just made his rounds, and Hung Wapu looked after him with a cunning grin as his heavy steps died away in the distance.

The coast was clear for two hours. Hung Wapu went in and locked the door, above which a green paper-lantern swung gently to and fro in the soft night wind. Hung Wapu passed through the store to the chop-house, where several dozen Chinese were squatting on the ground dining on unmentionable Chinese delicacies, which consisted of anything and everything soft enough to be chewed. No one watching the vacant expression of these people would have dreamed for a moment that anything was wrong; no one observing these chattering, shouting sons of the Celestial Kingdom would have guessed that anything out of the ordinary was on foot. They kept on eating, and did not even look up when several Japs stole, one by one, through their midst and disappeared through a door at the back. The Japs apparently attracted no attention whatsoever, but a keen observer would have noticed that Hung Wapu placed a little saki-bowl on a low table for every Japanese visitor that had entered his shop.

The Japs all went through a side-door of the opium-den into a large room, where they took off their outer clothing and put on uniforms instead. Then they lay down to sleep either on the mats on the floor or on the bundles of clothing which were stacked on the floor along the walls of the room.

Hung Wapu now accompanied one of his Chinese guests up the cellar-steps to the street, and sitting down on the top step began to chat in a low voice with his apparently half-intoxicated countryman. At the same time he polished about two dozen little saki-bowls with an old rag, afterwards arranging them in long rows on the pavement.

The animated traffic in the narrow alley gradually died down. One by one most of the gas-lamps closed their tired eyes, and only the green paper-lantern above Hung Wapu's door continued to swing to and fro in the night-wind, while similar spots of colored light were visible in front of a few of the neighboring houses. Far away a clock struck the hour of midnight, and somewhere else, high up in the air, a bell rang out twelve strokes with a metallic sound. A cool current of air coming from the harbor swept through the hot, ill-smelling alley.

Hung Wapu went on whispering with his companion, and all the time he continued to polish his little saki-bowls. After a while the visitor fell asleep against the door-post and snored with all his might. Misty shadows began to fall slowly and the lights of the street lamps took on a red glow. Suddenly the figure of a drunken man appeared a little distance away; he was carefully feeling his way along the houses, but as soon as he came in sight of Hung Wapu's cellar, he suddenly seemed to sober up for a minute and made directly for it. "Saki!" he stammered, planting himself in front of Hung Wapu, whereupon the latter made a sign. The drunken man, a Japanese, whose face looked ghastly pale in the green light from the lantern, stared stupidly at the saki-bowls, which Hung Wapu was trying to shield from the tottering wretch with his arm.

"Twenty-eight bowls," he stammered to himself, "twenty-eight saki-bowls——"

At this moment the sleeping Chinaman awoke and looked at the drunken man with a silly laugh.

"Yes, twenty-eight saki-bowls; it's all right—twenty-eight saki-bowls," repeated the drunken Jap, and reeled on along the houses.

Hung Wapu seemed to have ended his day's work with the polishing of the twenty-eight saki-bowls; he piled them up in a heap and disappeared with them into his cellar, followed with extraordinary agility by the Chinese sleeper. He hurried through the chop-house, the occupants of which were all fast asleep on their straw mats, passed through the opium-den, and then, in the third room, divested himself of his Chinese coat. The silk-cap with the pigtail attached was flung into a corner, and then, dressed in a khaki uniform, he seated himself at a table and studied a map of the city of San Francisco, making notes in a small book by the light of a smoky oil lamp.

The drunken Jap, who had apparently had doubts about entering Hung Wapu's chop-house, tottered on down the quiet street and made for another paper-lantern, which hung above another cellar door about ten houses farther on.

Here too, curiously enough, he found the Chinese landlord sitting on the top step. He wanted to push him aside and stumble down the steps, but the Chinaman stopped him.

"How much?" stuttered the drunken man.

"How much?" answered the Chinaman. "How much money will the great stranger pay for a meal for his illustrious stomach in Si Wafang's miserable hut? Forty kasch, forty kasch the noble son of the Rising Sun must pay for a shabby meal in Si Wafang's wretched hut."

"Forty kasch? I'll bring the forty kasch, most noble Si Wafang. 'I won't go home till morning, till daylight does appear,'" bawled the tipsy man, and staggered on down the street, whereupon this landlord also disappeared in his cellar, after extinguishing the paper lantern over the doorway.

A death-like stillness reigned in the street, and no one imagined that the rats were assembling, that the underground passages were full of them, and that it only needed a sign to bring the swarming masses to the surface.

A cold breeze from the sea swept through the deserted streets and a misty veil enveloped the yellow light of the gas-lamps. The lanterns hanging in front of the Chinese cellars were extinguished one by one, and everyone apparently turned in. The fog became thicker and thicker, and covered the pavement with moisture.

Suddenly the door of Hung Wapu's cellar squeaked; it was opened cautiously and a low clatter came up from below. Thirty dark forms crept slowly up the steps, one after the other, and without a word they began their march. Ten houses farther on a similar detachment poured out of the other Chinese cellar and joined their ranks.

The gas-lamps shed a dull, yellowish-red light on the gun-barrels of the Japanese company, which was marching down to the docks.

Two thousand steps farther on it had become a battalion, which marched rapidly in the direction of the barracks of the Fifth Regiment of regulars in the old Presidio. At the next corner the leader of the battalion unobtrusively saluted a man in uniform who stepped suddenly out of a doorway. A few Japanese words were exchanged in a low tone.

"This is an unexpected ally," said the Japanese colonel, holding out his hand in the dense fog.

Four o'clock struck from the tower of the Union Ferry Depot, and out from the sea, from the Golden Gate, came the bellowing voice of a steamer's whistle. The two officers looked at each other and smiled, and the troops continued their march.

"Halloo!" shouted a roundsman to a policeman who had been leaning against a lamp-post half asleep. "Halloo, Tom, wake up! Who are those fellows over there; where the deuce are they going?"

Tom opened his eyes, and up on the hill, a few blocks away, he could faintly distinguish through the thick fog the outline of a group of rapidly moving soldiers. "I guess they are some of our boys taking part in the naval maneuver. You know, Perry's going to attack us to-day."

"Well, I didn't know that," replied the roundsman. "They're great boys, all right; up and about at four in the morning." Just then the angry bellow from a steamer's whistle came across the water and abruptly ended this early morning conversation.

"I suppose that's Perry now," said Tom. "Well, he can't do much in this beastly fog, anyway."

"So long, Tom," answered the roundsman curtly as he slowly proceeded to resume his interrupted rounds.

An advance guard of a few men had been sent ahead. They found the sentry at the barrack-gates fast asleep. When he awoke it was to discover himself surrounded by a dozen men. He stared at them, still heavy with sleep, and then reached mechanically for his gun; it was gone. He tried to pull himself together, felt something cold pressed against his right temple, and saw the barrel of a Browning pistol in the hand of the man in front of him.

"Hands up!" came the command in a low tone, and a few seconds later he was bound and gagged. As he lay on the ground, he saw a whole battalion of foreign soldiers half in the court-yard before the barracks, and vague thoughts of naval maneuvers and surprises, of Admiral Perry and the Japs went through his mind, till all at once the notion "Japs" caused him to sit up mentally—weren't these men real Japanese? And if so, what did it all mean?

In the meantime double guards had occupied all the men's quarters, in which Uncle Sam's soldiers began gradually to wake up. The guns and ammunition had long ago passed into the hands of the Japs, and when at last the reveille from a Japanese bugle woke up the garrison completely, there was nothing to be done but to grind their teeth with rage and submit to the inevitable. They had to form in line in the court-yard at eight o'clock, and then, disarmed and escorted by Japanese troops, they had to board the ferry-boats and cross over to Angel Island, while the cannon on Fort Point (Winfield Scott) thundered out the last notes of American resistance in San Francisco.

When, shortly after midnight, the guard had been relieved for the last time, and only a few sleepy soldiers remained in the sentry-boxes of the coast batteries of San Francisco, the enemy lay in ambush behind the coast-line, ready, to the last man, to rise at a given signal and render the unsuspecting American troops hors de combat in their sleep. And thus, before the sentinels had any idea what was going on, they were disarmed and gagged. Not a single cry or shot was heard to warn the sleeping soldiers. They awoke to find themselves confronted by Japanese bayonets and gun-barrels, and resistance was utterly useless, for the enemy, who seemed to be remarkably well posted, had already taken possession of the ammunition and arms.

And where, all this time, was Admiral Perry with his fleet? Nowhere. The Japanese had made no mistake in relying on the traditional love of sensation of the American press. The telegram sent on May sixth from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Evening Standard was nothing but a Japanese trick. It notified the Standard that Admiral Perry intended during the naval maneuvers (which were actually to take place within the next fortnight) to gain an entrance through the Golden Gate, and the Japanese felt certain that the editor would not make inquiries at the last moment as to the veracity of this report, which was not at all in accord with previous arrangements, but would print it as it was, more especially as it was signed by their usual correspondent.

Thus the Japanese had reason to hope that no immediate suspicions would be aroused by the appearance of warships in the Bay of San Francisco. And so it turned out. The five Japanese armored cruisers and the torpedo flotilla, which were to surprise and destroy the naval station and the docks, were able to cross the entire bay under cover of the fog without being recognized and to occupy the docks and the arsenal. Four mortar-boats threatened Point Bonita and Lime Point, till they both surrendered.

What could the two cruisers New York and Brooklyn, lying in dock for repairs, do without a single ball-cartridge on board? What was the good of the deck guards using up their cartridges before the red flag of Nippon was hoisted above the Stars and Stripes?

It is true there was a fight at one spot—out at Winfield Scott. Although the fog proved of great assistance to the Japanese in a hundred cases, the stipulated signal for attack, that is, the whistle of the Japanese auxiliary cruiser Pelung Maru, for example, being taken for a fog-signal, nevertheless an annoying surprise awaited the enemy elsewhere.

A steamer headed towards the Golden Gate in the wake of the Pelung Maru heard the roar of the sealions, and as this showed how near they were to the cliffs, the vessel dropped anchor and instead of blowing its whistle ordered the ship's bell to be rung. This was heard by the Pelung Maru a short distance ahead and interpreted as a sign that something had occurred to disturb the plan of attack. A steamlaunch was therefore sent out to look for the anchored ship.

The latter was the German steamer Siegismund, whose captain, standing on the bridge, suddenly saw a dripping little launch approaching with its flag trailing behind it in the water. And just as in every cleverly arranged plan one stupid oversight is apt to occur so it happened now. The launch carried the Japanese flag and the lieutenant at the helm called to the Siegismund in Japanese. As they were directly before the guns of the American batteries, the German captain didn't know what to make of it. He couldn't imagine what the launch from a Japanese warship could be doing here at dawn before the Golden Gate fortifications, and thinking that the fact would be likely to be of interest to the commander of the fort, he sent him the following wireless message: "Have just met launch of a Japanese warship off Seal-Rocks; what does it mean?"

This information alarmed the garrison at Winfield Scott, and the men at once received orders to man the guns. Then they waited breathlessly to see what would happen next.

An inquiry sent by wireless to the other stations remained unanswered, because these were already in the hands of the Japanese, whose operators were not quick-witted enough to send back a reassuring answer. As the commander of the fort received no answer, he became suspicious, and these suspicions were soon justified when a number of soldiers were discovered trying to force their way into the narrow land entrance of the fort. A few shots fired during the first bayonet assault and the bullets landing within the fort showed that it was a serious matter. Besides, a puff of wind dispersed the fog for a few seconds just then, and the shadowy silhouettes of several large ships became visible. Without a moment's hesitation the commander of Winfield Scott ordered the men to open fire on them from the heavy guns. These were the shots that had been heard at the San Francisco Post Office and Tom was quite right in thinking that he heard the rattle of musketry directly afterwards.

But with the small stock of ammunition doled out to the coast defenses in times of peace—there were plenty of blank cartridges for salutes—it was impossible to hold Winfield Scott. The fort sent out a few dozen shells into the fog pretty blindly, and, as a matter of fact, they hit nothing. Then began the hopeless battle between the garrison and the Japanese machine-guns, and although the shots from the latter were powerless to affect the walls and the armor-plating, still they worked havoc among the men. And the ammunition of the Americans disappeared even more quickly than their men, so that when at ten o'clock two Japanese regiments undertook to capture the fort by storm, the last defender fell with practically the last cartridge. Then the Rising Sun of Dai Nippon was substituted on the flagstaff of Winfield Scott for the Stars and Stripes.

In the city itself small Japanese guards were posted at the railway station, the Post Office and the telegraph offices, at the City Hall and at most of the public buildings, and as early as this, on the morning of May seventh, troops for the march eastward were being landed at the pier at Oakland. A standing garrison of only five thousand men was left in San Francisco, and these at once occupied the coast-batteries and prepared them for defense. The same thing was of course done with the docks and the naval station, with Oakland and all the other towns situated on the bay.

The sudden appearance of the enemy had in every case had a positively paralyzing effect. Among the inhabitants of the coast the terrible feeling prevailed everywhere that this was the end, that nothing could be done against an enemy whose soldiers crept out of every hole and cranny, and even when a few courageous men did unite for the purpose of defending their homes, they found no followers. It is a pity that others did not show the resolute courage of a Mexican fisherman's wife, who reached the harbor of San Francisco with a good catch early on Monday morning and made fast to the pier close to a Japanese destroyer. Almost immediately a Japanese petty officer came on board and demanded the catch for the use of the Japanese army. The woman, a coarse beauty with a fine mustache, planted herself in front of the Jap and shouted: "What, you shrimp, you want our fish, do you?" and seizing a good-sized silver fish lying on the deck, she boxed the astonished warrior's ears right and left till he fell over backwards into the water and swam quickly back to the destroyer, snorting like a seal, amidst the laughter of the bystanders.

The question naturally suggests itself at this point: Why didn't a people as determined as the Americans rise like one man and, arming themselves with revolvers and pistols and if it came to the worst with such primitive weapons as knives and spokes, attack the various small Japanese garrisons and free their country from this flood of swarming yellow ants? The white handbills posted up at every street corner furnished the answer to the question.

The municipal authorities were made responsible to the Japanese military governor, who was clever enough to leave the entire American municipal administration unaltered, even down to the smallest detail. Even the local police remained in office. The whole civil life went on as before, and only the machine-guns in front of the Japanese guard-houses situated at the various centers of traffic showed who was now ruler in the land. All the officials and the whole city administration were bound by a marvelously clever and effective system.

In the proclamations issued by the Japanese military governor the city was threatened, should the slightest sign of resistance occur, with acts of vengeance that positively took one's breath away. Three Japanese cruisers, with their guns constantly loaded and manned and aimed directly at the two cities, lay between Oakland and San Francisco. They had orders to show no mercy and to commence a bombardment at the first sign of trouble. It did not seem to have occurred to any one that although the bombardment of a town like San Francisco by a few dozen guns might indeed have a bad moral effect, it would nevertheless be impossible to do much harm. But the Japanese had other trump cards up their sleeves. The military governor declared that the moment they were compelled to use the guns, he would cut off all the available supply of water and light, by which means all resistance would be broken down within twenty-four hours. For this reason all the gas-works and electric plants were transformed into little forts and protected by cannon and machine-guns. Tens of thousands might try, in vain, to take them by storm; the city would remain wrapped in darkness, except, as the Japanese general remarked with a polite smile to the Mayor of San Francisco, for the bright light of bursting shells.

In the same way the municipal waterworks in San Francisco and all the other towns occupied by the Japanese were insured against attack. Not one drop of water would the town receive, and what that meant could be best explained to the Mayor by his wife. And thus, in spite of their often ridiculously small numbers, the Japanese troops were safe from surprise, for the awful punishment meted out to the town of Stockton, where a bold and quickly organized band of citizens destroyed the Japanese garrison, consisting only of a single company, was not likely to be disregarded. The entire population of the Pacific Coast was forced to submit quietly, though boiling with rage, while at the same time all listened eagerly for the report of cannon from the American army in the east. But was there such a thing as an American army? Was there any sense in hoping when months must pass before an American army could take the field?

The deception of the Evening Standard by means of the fatal telegram was preceded by an instructive episode. Indeed, it might well be asked whether anything that happened in this terrible time could not be traced back pretty far. In order that the news of the naval maneuvers in the Evening Standard should receive sufficient attention on the critical day, this paper and consequently the inhabitants of San Francisco had for some months past been taught to expect over the signature "Our Naval Correspondent," amazingly correct accounts of the movements of the American fleet and all matters pertaining to the navy.

Mr. Alfred Stephenson had hard work to keep his head above water as editor of the Los Angeles Advertiser at Los Angeles. The struggle for existence gave him considerable cause for worry, and this was due to the fact that Mrs. Olinda Stephenson wished to cut a figure in society, a figure that was not at all compatible with her husband's income. Mr. Stephenson was therefore often called upon to battle with temptation, but for a long time he successfully withstood all offers the acceptance of which would have lowered him in his own estimation. The consequence was that financial discussion had become chronic in the Stephenson household, and, like a Minister of Finance, he was compelled to develop considerable energy in order to diminish the financial demands of the opposition or render them void by having recourse to passive resistance. This constant worry gradually exhausted Mr. Stephenson, however, and the check-book, which, to save his face, he always carried with him, was nothing more than a piece of useless bluff.

He could therefore scarcely be blamed for eagerly seizing the opportunity offered him one evening at a bar in Los Angeles, when a stranger agreed to furnish him regularly with news from the Navy Department for the Evening Standard. The affair had, of course, to be conducted with the greatest secrecy. The stranger told Stephenson that a clerk in the Navy Department was willing to send him such news for two hundred dollars per annum. The result was astonishing. The articles signed "Our Naval Correspondent" soon attracted wide attention, and the large fees received from San Francisco quite covered the deficits in the Stephenson household. Mrs. Olinda was soon rolling in money and the tiresome financial discussions came to a speedy end. From that time on Stephenson regularly received secret communications, which were mailed at Pasadena, and as to the origin of which he himself remained in complete ignorance. But these same messages enabled the Evening Standard in a brief space of time to establish a national reputation for its naval news, which was at no time officially contradicted.

The matter did not, of course, pass unnoticed in Washington, for it soon became evident that secret dispatches were being misappropriated. Vigorous efforts were made to discover the guilty person in the Navy Department, but they all proved vain for the following reason: Among the wireless stations used for maintaining constant communication between the Navy Department at Washington and the various naval ports and naval stations, and the fleet itself when at sea, was the large station on Wilson's Peak near the observatory, whose shining tin-roof can be seen plainly from Los Angeles when the sun strikes it. All messages arriving there for transmission to San Diego and Mare Island could be readily intercepted by the wireless apparatus attached inconspicuously to the huge wind-wheel on an orange plantation between Pasadena and Los Angeles. The uninitiated would have concluded that the wires had something to do with a lightning-rod. The Japanese proprietor of the plantation had simply to read the messages from the Morse key of his apparatus and forward what he considered advisable to Mr. Stephenson by mail. A few hours later the Evening Standard was in a position to make a scoop with the dispatches of its infallible naval correspondent.

Thus Stephenson, without having the slightest suspicion of it, formed a wheel in the great chain which prepared the way for the enemy, and since the Evening Standard had earned a reputation for publishing absolutely reliable news in this field, no one for a moment doubted the announcement of Admiral Perry's attack, although this was the first spurious message which Stephenson had furnished to his paper.