Shooting the Yangtze Rapids
Eerie silence spread over the jungle following the machine-gun firing.
The jungle was holding its breath. The monkeys, birds, even the cicadas,
stopped their endless chattering and calling for several moments. Chuba
sat rigid, his fists clenched, as fear tore at his nerves. Biff! What
had happened to his friend Biff?
What could he do? What was there to do? The questions whirled in his
head. No sensible answers came. If he went back down the trail toward
the river, he might run into the guards, still prowling, ready to let
loose their deadly spray of bullets at the slightest strange sound or
movement. But what about Biff? Had those shots been directed at him? And
had they reached him? Chuba shuddered at the thought.
After waiting as long as his worried mind would permit him, Chuba
decided to investigate. On his stomach, he wormed his way toward the
path. At the edge of the brush, he stopped. For minutes he lay still,
listening, listening, straining his ears to catch any sound that might
warn him of the guards’ presence.
“It’s all right,” he told himself, trying desperately to rebuild his
courage. “They’ve gone back to the clearing. It’s safe for me to
explore.”
Just as Chuba snaked his body halfway out on the trail, he tensed. He
heard a noise behind him. Not much of a noise, only the faintest rustle
in the brush. Quickly the native boy worked his way backward off the
trail.
Again he heard the noise, slightly louder this time. An animal, a snake?
Chuba knew that his knife, long and sharp as it was, would be little
protection against a jungle animal. And even less against guards armed
with rapid-fire weapons.
Then he caught another faint sound, soft, so soft as to be barely heard.
“Eeeee-owieeeee.” Silence. Then, slightly louder, “Yow ... Yow.”
Chuba’s face brightened. “Caww ... caww,” he answered.
“Chuba” was the one word whispered in reply to his crow call.
The native boy wiped his forehead with his forearm and sighed in relief.
It was Biff. It had to be. Biff was all right.
“Biff?” Chuba called in a squeaky voice. The boy scrambled to the edge
of the trail again. He looked carefully to his right, down the trail
toward the river. Then he looked left, where the Comanche call had been
sounded. He saw Biff’s stained face poke out of the bushes about ten
feet away. A big grin showed white teeth even whiter against his brown
face.
The two boys wasted no time in talk. They made tracks, and fast, away
from the river, away from the border guard. After an hour of steady
traveling, Chuba darted off the main path, following a little used one
deep into the bush.
“We rest here,” Chuba said, gasping for breath.
“Okay by me,” said Biff. It seemed to him that every bone, every muscle
in his body ached. The struggle through the jungle growth, the tension
of making the river crossing, had worn both boys out. Both were only too
happy to stretch out and let their bodies regain strength.
“So this is China,” Biff said wearily.
He sat up, dug into his bundle, and took out a small bottle of
antiseptic. This he rubbed over the scratches on his legs and arms. He
handed the bottle to Chuba. Then he took out a large tube of insect
repellant. Flies and mosquitoes had formed a small cloud around the two.
“What happened?” Chuba asked. “I heard much gun shoots. I worry. I think
maybe they shoot Biff.”
“They tried to, Chuba. I fooled ’em, though.”
“How you do this?”
“Well, I got across the river all right without being seen. Those guards
really jumped when they heard you call. I’d gone maybe fifty feet down
the trail, on this side, when I heard the guards coming back out of the
brush, back to the trail. So I dived into a thicket and crawled away
from the trail. I don’t know how long I waited. Then I heard the guards
getting nearer the spot where I was hiding.”
“They almost find you?”
“Darn near it. I don’t believe they could have been more than ten feet
from me at one time. That’s when I figured I had to do something. I
found a stick about three feet long and as thick as your arm. I heard
the guards talking to one another. Then I hurled the stick as far as I
could. It crashed in the brush, made quite a noise. Just what I wanted.
The guards rushed back down the trail toward the spot where the stick
landed. Then they opened up. That’s the shooting you heard.”
Chuba smiled. “I bet they cut big hole in underbrush with those
bullets.”
“But we fooled them, Chuba. We got across.”
“Now we better get moving again,” the boy was suddenly very
businesslike. “Not far from here is small village. When we get there, we
take main road. Now we’re inside China, no more have to take to secret
trails and paths. We just two Chinese beggar boys.”
By nightfall the boys had reached the crumbling gray wall surrounding a
small village.
“In this village,” said Chuba, “lives the young brother of my father. He
will give us shelter for the night.”
The boys passed through the village gate. Biff saw a small, rust-stained
cannon seemingly hanging down from the wall on one side of the gate. At
the other side, another cannon lay in the dirt at the base of the wall.
It had long since broken away from its emplacement. Once, many years
ago, these cannon protected the village from the raids of bandits. But
now, the wall was crumbling in many places, and the city was open to
anyone wishing to enter.
Biff and Chuba made their way along a narrow, dirt street, lined with
small houses made of thatch and mud. Men, women, and children, all
poorly dressed, moved back and forth, at times filling the street until
it was difficult for the boys to make their way.
They reached the end of the street, a distance of not much more than a
quarter of a mile. Chuba cut off to his left toward a house standing
just inside the gray wall, but somewhat removed from the other houses.
“The house of my uncle,” Chuba said, pointing.
Biff was glad to leave the street. It was littered with trash, and the
smells were sickening.
“When we are inside the house of my uncle, you must not say a single
word,” Chuba warned. “I do not want even him to know you are America
boy. I tell him you can hear but cannot talk. I tell him we on our way
to visit the older brother of my father, he who lives on the banks of
the Yangtze River.”
The house was roughly made of earthen bricks and thatched with wheat
straw. A small man stood at the entrance to the house. The doorway was
closed only by a drooping cloth, sewn together from several grain bags.
Chuba bowed low as he approached his uncle. They spoke together rapidly.
Biff, of course, could not understand a single word spoken. Chuba turned
to him.
“My uncle welcomes us. He says we may sleep here, and he will feed us.
Come, we go in.”
The floor of the house was earth, worn smooth and packed hard by the
feet of three generations of the uncle’s family. A Chinese woman looked
at the boys as they entered, but spoke no word of greeting. She was the
uncle’s wife. Two children, each younger and smaller than Chuba, stared
at the boys, their eyes round with wonder at seeing strangers.
Chuba’s uncle spoke to his wife. Minutes later she brought both the boys
a small portion of rice, served in an earthen saucer. The rice had
little or no flavor for Biff. But it was hot, and he ate every grain.
Night had fallen. The only light came from the fire in the open oven set
in one wall of the house.
The uncle spoke again to Chuba, and the boy nodded and motioned Biff to
follow. The uncle took them into a small room which was to be their
sleeping room. There were only three rooms in the house. Biff looked
about him. The room was bare except for one low bench standing in the
center. They would sleep that night on the dirt floor. And sleep they
did, as if they were in the most comfortable beds ever made. At dawn,
with another small bowl of rice to warm their stomachs, the boys were on
their way again.
The boys crossed the Plateau of Yunnan and reached Chaochiang on the
Yangtze River. This was the small town where the older brother of
Chuba’s father lived. From this uncle, Chuba borrowed a crudely built
small boat, held together with wire and wooden pegs. Two cumbersome,
double-bladed oars would be power. The boat was to be left at
Sundhiango, a village about one hundred miles west of Chungking. Chuba’s
uncle would get it on his next trip to the large city.
The Yangtze River, rising out of the mountains of Tibet on its 3,500
mile course to the Yellow Sea, flows swiftly in the western part of
China. The ugly, yellow water roars through chasms, with lofty crags on
either side rising 300 feet high. The little boat, Biff in the bow,
Chuba in the stern, raced along like a small chip of wood. It was fun at
first after the tiring days of fighting their way through the jungle on
foot. They sped through gorges, putting mile after mile behind them. As
they neared Sundhiango, the river widened. Boiling white water told Biff
that they were getting into shallower water. A roar from ahead told him
they were approaching rapids.
They shot the first three rapids without trouble, then entered a broad,
smooth stretch of water where they drifted slowly with the current.
Rounding a sharp bend, Biff again heard the roar of white water. This
time the roar was louder than before. The small craft suddenly picked up
speed. The boat plunged into the swirling, dashing water and was tossed
about as if it were a twig. Time and again, it seemed the boat would
crash on a huge boulder. Each time the current swirled it around just in
time to prevent a smashup.
Looking ahead, Biff could see the end of the rapid. The round swell of
the water was a warning—falls ahead! There must be a drop of several
feet, Biff figured. He couldn’t see directly beyond the falls. All that
was visible was a broad body of water beyond—smooth, quiet, wide enough
to be a small lake.
There was nothing to do but pray that the boat would get safely over the
falls and into the calm water beyond.
“Hold on, Chuba!” Biff called. Oars were useless now.
The boat was caught up in a natural spillway, a narrow, fast-moving path
of water which shot over the falls and plunged downward. The boat shot
over the spillway. For moments, it seemed to hang in mid-air. Then it
hit the water below with a bone-jarring smack.
“We made it!” Biff cried jubilantly, turning to look back at Chuba.
Chuba had disappeared. He had been thrown out of the boat as it leaped
over the falls. Biff spotted his friend’s head in the water twenty feet
this side of the falls.
[Illustration: Shooting the rapids]
“Have a good swim, Chuba,” Biff shouted gaily. “I’ll wait for you.” Biff
reset the oars and leaned them on his knees. “Hey, chum, not so much
splash—” Biff’s happy call faded out. Chuba was floundering in the
water. His arms stopped thrashing and his head went out of sight. Then
it bobbed into view, only to sink a second time.
With a start, Biff realized that Chuba couldn’t swim.