THE SAND
At seven the next morning the digging began. At six, when Hank turned
out of the tent, the aspect of the beach had changed. A north wind,
rising before midnight, had blown steadily and strongly unheard and
unheeded by the snoring sleepers in the tents. It died out after dawn.
Hank called George to look. Here and there away across the sands white
spots were visible, some like the tops of gigantic mushrooms. One quite
close to them showed as the top of a whale’s skull. Further on a huge
rib hinted of itself. There were little sand-drifts on the windward
side of the tents.
“Wind’s been shifting the sand,” said George, “it’s all over me.” His
hair was full of sand and his pockets. Hank was in the same condition.
Tommie came out of her tent blinking at the sun.
“Say, I’m all sand,” cried Tommie.
“Wind’s been blowing,” said Hank; “look at the bones.”
The sand seemed lower over the cache.
Candon gave it as his opinion that it was at least a foot lower. Then
without more ado they began to dig, using the two spades and one of the
shovels improvised by Hank.
Candon, Hank and one of the Chinks were the diggers. They had divided
themselves into two gangs, George, Tommie, and the other Chink forming
the second gang; and they, having seen the work started, went off to
prepare breakfast.
After breakfast they started again, working in two shifts of half an
hour each, and keeping it up till eleven. Then they knocked off, fagged
out but somehow happy. The middle of the day was too hot for work and
after dinner they slept till three, knocking off finally somewhere
about six. A hole ten feet broad from north to south, eight feet from
east to west, and nearly three feet deep was the result of their work,
the excavated stuff being banked north and south, so that if the wind
blew up from either quarter, there would be less drift of sand into the
hole. Hank watered these banks as far as he could with water from the
spring in the cliff to make the sand “stay put”; then they went off to
supper.
T. C. had worked in her way as hard as any of them, taking as a sort
of personal insult any suggestion that she was overdoing herself.
Dog-tired now, she was seated on the sand by the middle tent reading an
old Chicago _Tribune_ that George had brought ashore, whilst the others
prepared supper.
“Lord,” said Hank, as he knelt building up the fire. “If I haven’t
forgot to send for your book.” He looked towards the boat on the beach
and half rose to his feet.
“I’m not wanting it,” said Tommie. “This is good enough for me, I’m too
tired for books—tea’s what I want.”
She dived into the paper again, emerging when supper was announced with
the gist of an article on the League of Nations between her teeth. T.
C. had strong political opinions, and her own ideas about the League of
Nations. She did not favour the League and said so.
Hank, opening a can of salmon and hit in his ideals, forgot it, waved
it in the air and started to do battle with Tommie. That was Hank all
over; heart-punched, lying on his back with Cupid counting him out, he
saw for a moment only the banner of universal peace and brotherhood
waving above him.
“But it isn’t so,” cried Hank. “There’s no Monroe doctrines in
morality. America can’t sit scratching herself when others are up and
doing. Why the nations have got war down, down, right now, kicking
under the blanket, and it only wants America to sit on her head to
_keep_ her down.”
“America’s got to be strong before she does anything,” fired Tommie.
“How’s she to be strong if a lot of foreigners sitting in Geneva can
tell her to do this or that? Why they’d cut her fists off.”
“Strong,” cried Hank. “Why armies and navies aren’t strength. Love of
man for man—”
“Mean to tell me you could love Turks?”
“Ain’t talking of Turks.”
“Greeks then—Portugueses—say, tell me straight—do you love niggers?”
The sight of Tommie “het up” and with sparkling eyes gave the
struggling hero such another heart punch that he collapsed, lost sight
of the banner of brotherhood and went on opening the can of salmon.
“Maybe I’m wrong and maybe you’re right,” said he, “it’s a big
question. Pass me that plate, will you, Bud?”
Candon had said nothing. He had deserted his co-idealist like a skunk,
and seemed engaged in re-reviewing the League of Nations by the light
of Tommie.
Half an hour after supper the whole lot of them were snoring in their
tents, pole-axed by sleep.