There were four of us that Sunday. "Bish" and I always went for an
afternoon swim unless police or mess duties forbade. Then there was
Bridgley, who had also once displayed his svelte form in a Z. P.
uniform to admiring tourists, but was now a pursuer of "soldiering"
Hindus on Naos Island. I wish I could describe Bridgley for you. But if
you never knew him ten pages would give you no clearer idea, and if you
ever did, the mere mention of the name Bridgley will be full and ample
description. Still, if you must have some sort of a lay figure to hang
your imaginings on, think of a man who always reminds you of a slender,
delicate porcelain vase of great antiquity that you know a strong wind
would smash to fragments,--yet when you accidentally swat it off the
mantelpiece to the floor it bobs up without a crack. Then you grow
bolder and more curious and jump on it with both feet in your
hob-nailed boots, and to your astonishment it not only does not break
but--
Well, Bridgley was one of us that Sunday afternoon; and then there was
"the Admiral," well-dressed as always, who turned up at the last
moment; for which we were glad, as any one would be to have "the
Admiral" along. So we descended into Panama by the train-guard
short-cut and across the bridge that humps its back over the P. R. R.
like a cat in unsocial mood, and on through Caledonia out along the
beach sands past the old iron hulls about which Panamanian laborers are
always tinkering under the impression that they are working. This time
we walked. I don't recall now whether it was quarter-cracks, or the
Lieutenant hadn't slept well--no, it couldn't have been that, for the
Lieutenant never let his personal mishaps trample on his good
nature--or whether "Bish" had decided to try to reduce weight. At any
rate we were afoot, and thereby hangs the tale--or as much of a tale as
there is to tell.
We tramped resolutely on along the hard curving beach past the
disheveled bath-houses before which ladies from the Zone gather in some
force of a Sunday afternoon. For this time we were really out for a
swim rather than to display our figures. On past the light-brown
bathers, and the chocolate-colored bathers, and the jet black bathers
who seemed to consider that color covering enough, till we came to the
big silent saw-mill at the edge of the cocoanut grove that we had been
invited long since to make a Z. P. dressing-room.
Before us spread the reposing, powerful, sun-shimmering Pacific. Across
the bay, clear as an etching, lay Panama backed by Ancon hill. In
regular cadence the ocean swept in with a hoarse, resistless roll on
the sands.
We dived in, keeping an eye out for the sharks we knew never come so
far in and probably wouldn't bite if they did. The sun blazed down
white hot from a cloudless sky. This time the Lieutenant and Sergeant
Jack had not been able to come, but we arranged the races and jumps on
the sand for all that, and went into them with a will and--
A rain-drop fell. Nor was it long lonesome. Before we had finished the
hundred-yard dash we were in the midst of ---- it was undeniably
raining. Half a moment later "bucketsful" would have been a weak
simile. All the pent up four months of an extra long rainy season
seemed to have been loosed without warning. The blanket of water
blotted out Panama and Ancon hill across the bay, blotted out the
distant American bathers, then the light-brown ones, then the
chocolate-tinted, then even the jet black ones close at hand.
We remained under water for a time to keep dry. But the rain whipped
our faces as with thousands of stinging lashes. We crawled out and
dashed blindly up the bank toward the saw-mill, the rain beating on our
all but bare skins, feeling as it might to stand naked in Miraflores
locks and let the sand pour down upon us from sixty feet above. When at
last we stumbled under cover and up the stairs to where our clothing
hung, it was as if a weight of many tons had been lifted from our
shoulders.
The saw-mill was without side-walls; consisted only of a sheet-iron
roof and floors, on the former of which the storm pounded with a roar
that made only the sign language feasible. It was now as if we were
surrounded on all sides by solid walls of water and forever shut off
from the outer world--if indeed that had survived. Sheets of water
slashed in further and further across the floor. We took to huddling
behind beams and under saw-benches--the militant storm hunted us out
and wetted us bit by bit. "The Admiral" and I tucked ourselves away on
the 45-degree eye-beams up under the roaring roof. The angry water
gathered together in columns and swept in and up to soak us.
At the end of an hour the downpour had increased some hundred per cent.
It was as if an express train going at full speed had gradually doubled
its rapidity. That was the day when little harmless streams tore
themselves apart into great gorges and left their pathetic little
bridges alone and deserted out in the middle of the gulf. That was the
famous May twelfth, 1912, when Ancon recorded the greatest rainfall in
her history,--7.23 inches, virtually all within three hours. Three of
us were ready to surrender and swim home through it. But there was "the
Admiral" to consider. He was dressed clear to his scarf-pin--and Panama
tailors tear horrible holes in a police salary. So we waited and dodged
and squirmed into closer holes for another hour; and grew steadily
wetter.
Then at length dusk began to fall, and instead of slacking with the day
the fury of the storm increased. It was then that "the Admiral"
capitulated, seeing fate plainly in league with his tailor; and
wigwagging the decision to us beside him, he led the way down the
stairs and dived into the world awash.
Wet? We had not taken the third step before we were streaming like fire
hose. There was nearly an hour of it, splashing knee-deep through what
had been when we came out little dry sandy hollows; steering by guess,
for the eye could make out nothing fifty yards ahead, even before the
cheese-thick darkness fell; bowed like nonogenarians under the burden
of water; staggering back and forth as the storm caught us crosswise or
the earth gave way under us. "The Admiral's" patent-leather shoes--but
why go into painful details? Those who were in Panama on that memorable
afternoon can picture it all for themselves, and the others will never
know. The wall of water was as thick as ever when we fought our bowed
and weary way up over the railroad bridge and, summoning up the last
strength, splurged tottering into "Angelini's."
When our streaming had so far subsided that they recognised us for
solvent human beings, encouraging concoctions were set before us.
Bridgley, fearing the after effects, acquired a further quart bottle of
protection, and when we had gathered force for the last dash we plunged
out once more toward our several goals. As the door of 111 slammed
behind me, the downpour suddenly slackened. As I paused before my room
to drain, it stopped raining.
I supped on bread, beer, and cheese from over the frontier--we had
arrived thirty seconds too late for Ancon police mess. Then when I had
saved what was salvable from the wreckage and reclad in such wardrobe
as had luckily remained at home, I strolled over toward the police
station to put in a serene and quiet evening.
But it has long since been established that troubles flock together. As
I crunched up the gravel walk between the hedge-rows, wild riot broke
on my ear. Ancon police station was in eruption. From the Lieutenant to
the newest uniformless "rookie" every member of the force was swarming
in and out of the building. The Zone and Panama telephones were ringing
in their two opposing dialects, the deskman was shouting his own
peculiar brand of Spanish into one receiver and bawling English at the
other, all hands were diving into old clothes, the most apathetic of
the force were girding up their loins with the adventurous fire of the
old Moro-hunting days in their eyes, and all, some ahorse, more afoot,
were dashing one by one out into the night and the jungle.
It was several minutes before I could catch the news. At last it was
shouted at me over a telephone. Murder! A white Greek--who ever heard
of a colored Greek?--with a white shirt on had shot a man at Pedro
Miguel at 6:35. Every road and bypath of escape to Panama was already
blocked, armed men would meet the assassin whatever way he might take.
I went down to meet the evening train, resolved after that to strike
out into the night in the random hope of having my share in the chase.
It had begun to rain again, but only moderately, as if it realized it
could never again equal the afternoon record.
Then suddenly the excitement exploded. It was only a near-murder. Two
Colombians had been shot, but would in all probability recover. The
news reached me as I stood at the second-class gate scanning the faces
of the great multicolored river of passengers that poured out into the
city. For two hours, one by one with crestfallen mien, the manhunters
leaked back into Ancon station and, the case having dwindled to one of
regular daily routine, by eleven we were all abed.
In the morning the "Greek chase" fell to me. More detailed description
of the culprit had come in during the night, including the bit of
information that he was a bad man from the Isle of Crete. The
belt-straining No. 38 oiled and loaded, I set off on an assignment that
was at least a relief after pursuing stolen necklaces for negro women,
or crowbars lost by the I. C. C.
By nine I was climbing to Pedro Miguel police station on its knoll with
the young Greek who had exchanged hats with the assassin after the
crime. That afternoon a volunteer joined me. He was a friend of the
wounded men, a Peruvian black as jade, but without a suggestion of the
negro in anything but his outward appearance. He was of the size and
build of a Sampson in his prime, spoke a Spanish so clear-cut it seemed
to belie his African blood, and had the restless vigor acquired in a
youth of tramping over the Andine ranges.
I piled him into a cab and we rolled away to East Balboa, to climb upon
an empty dirt-train and drop off as it raced through Miraflores, the
sturdy legs of the Peruvian saving him where his practice would not
have. Up in the bush between Pedro Miguel and Paraiso we found a hut
where the Greek had stopped for water and gone on up a gully. We set
out to follow, mounting partly on hands and knees, partly dragging
ourselves by grass and bushes up what had been and would soon be again
a torrential mountain stream. For hours we tore through the jungle, up
hills steeper than the path of righteousness, following now a few faint
foot-prints or trampled bushes, now a hint from some native bush
dweller. The rain outside vied with the sweat within as to which would
first soak us through. To make things merrier I had not only to wear an
arsenal but a coat atop to conceal it from the general public.
To mention the holes I crawled into and the clues I followed during the
next few days would be more tiresome than a Puritan prayer. By day I
was dashing back and forth through all Ancon district, by night
prowling about the grimier sections of Panama city. Almost daily I got
near enough to sniff the prey. Now it was a Greek confectioner on
Avenida Central who admitted that the fugitive had called on him during
the night, now a Panamanian pesquisa whose stool-pigeon had seen him
out in the bush, then the information that he had stopped to shave and
otherwise alter his appearance in some shack half-way across the Zone
and afterward struck off for Panama by an unused route. The clues were
pendulum-like. They took me a half-dozen times at least out the winding
highway to Corozal, on to Miraflores and even further. The rainy season
and the reign of umbrellas had come. It had been formally opened on
that memorable Sunday afternoon. There was still sunshine at times, but
always a wet season heaviness to the atmosphere; and the rains were
already giving the rolling jungle hills a tinge of new green. There was
nothing to be gained by hurrying. The fugitive was as likely to crawl
forth from one place as another along the rambling road. Here I paused
to kill a lizard or to watch the clumsy march of one of the huge purple
and many-colored land-crabs, there to gaze away across a jungled valley
soft and fuzzy in the humid air like some Corot painting.
I even sailed for San Francisco in the quest. For of course each
outgoing ship must be searched. One day I had word that a "windjammer"
was about to sail; and racing out to Balboa I was soon set aboard the
fore and aft schooner Meteor far out in the bay. When I plunged down
into the cabin the peeled-headed German captain was seated at a table
before a heap of "Spig" dollars, paying off his black shore hands. He
solemnly asserted he had no Greek aboard, and still more solemnly swore
that if he found one stowed away he would turn him over to the police
in San Francisco--which was kind of him but would not have helped
matters. There are several men running gaily about San Francisco
streets who would be very welcome in certain quarters on the Zone and
sure of lodging and food for a long time to come.
By this time the tug Bolivar had us in tow, the captain went racing
over his ship like any of his crew, tugging at the ropes, and we were
gliding out across Panama bay, past the little greening islands, the
curving panorama of the city and Ancon hill growing smaller and smaller
behind--bound for 'Frisco. What ho! the merry "windjammer" with her
stowed sails and smell of tar awakened within me old memories, hungry
and grimy for the most part. But this was no independent,
self-respecting member of the Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the
offing lay a steamer of the same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the
Golden Gate! How is the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers
aboard would take an occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their
unadventurous yarns. As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me
aboard the steamer, to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers,
who fancied they had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners."
The captain asserted he had nothing aboard grown nearer Greece than
three Irishmen, any one of whom--facetiousness seemed to be one of the
captain's characteristics--I might have and welcome. A few moments
later I was back aboard the tug waving farewell to steamer and
"windjammer" as they pushed away into the twilight sea, and the Bolivar
turned shoreward.
I received a "straight tip" one evening that the fugitive Greek was
hiding in a hovel on the Cruces trail. What part of the Cruces trail,
the informant did not hint; but he described the hut in some detail. So
next morning as the thick gray dawn of this tropical land was melting
into day, I descended at Bas Obispo, through the canal to Gamboa and
struck off into the dense dripping jungle. The rainy season had greened
things up and gone--temporarily, of course, for in a day or two it
would be on us again in all tropical fury. In the few days since the
first rain the landscape had changed like a theater decoration, a green
not even to be imagined in the temperate zone.
It turned out that the ancient village of Cruces was a mere two-mile
stroll from the canal, a thatch-roofed native town of some thirty
dwellings on the rocky shore of an inner curve of the Chagres, where
travelers from Balboa to the last "Forty-niner" disembarked from their
thirty-six mile ride up the river and struck on along the ten-mile road
through the jungle to Panama--the famous Cruces trail. Except for its
associations the village was without interest--except some personal
Greek interest. Sour looks were chiefly my portion, for the villagers
have never taken kindly to Americans.
I soon sought out the trail, here a mere path undulating through rank,
wet-hot, locust singing jungle. Here in the tangled somber mystery of
the wilderness grew every tropical thing; countless giant ferns,
draping tangles of vines, the mango tree with its rounded dome of
leaves like the mosque of Omar done in greenery, the humble pineapple
with its unproportionate fruit, everywhere the banana, king of
vegetables, clothed in its own immense leaves, the frondy zapote, now
and then in a hollow a clump of yellowish-green bamboo, though not
numerous or nearly so large as in many another tropical land, above all
else the symmetrical Gothic fronds of the palm nodding in a breeze the
more humble vegetation could not know. The constant music of insect
life sounded in my ears; everywhere were flowers of brilliant hue,
masses of bush blossoms not unlike the lilac in appearance, but like
all down on the Isthmus, odorless--or rather with a pungent scent, like
strong catsup.
Four months earlier I should have been chary of diving back into the
Panamanian "bush" alone, above all on a criminal hunt. But it needs
only a little time on the Zone to make one laugh at the absurd stories
of danger from the bush native that are even yet appearing in many U.
S. papers. They are not over friendly to whites, it is true. But they
were all of that familiar languid Central American type, blinking at me
apathetically out of the shade of their huts, crowding to one edge of
the trail as I passed, eying me silently, a bit morosely, somewhat
frightened because their experience of Americans is of a discourteous
creature who shouts at them in a strange tongue and swears at them
because they do not understand it. The moment they heard their own
customary greetings they changed to children delighted to do anything
to oblige--even to the extent of dragging their indolent forms erect to
lead the way a quarter-mile through the bush to some isolated shack.
Far from contemplating any injury, all these wayward children of the
jungle ask is to be let alone to drift through life in their own way.
Still more absurd is the notion of danger from wild beasts--other than
the tiny wild beast that burrows its painful way under the skin.
So I pushed on, halting at many huts to make covert inquiries. It was a
joyous, brilliant day overhead. Down in the dense, rampant, singing
jungle I sweated profusely--and enjoyed it. Choking for a drink in a
hutless section, I took one of the crooked, tunnel-like trails to the
left in the direction of the Chagres. But it squirmed off through thick
jungle, through banana groves and untended pineapple gardens to come
out at last at an astonished hut on a knoll, from which was not to be
seen a sign of the river. I crawled through another struggling
side-trail further on and this time reached the stream, but at a bank
too sheer and bush-matted to descend. The third attempt brought me to
where the river made a graceful bend at my feet and I descended an
abrupt jungle bank to drink and stroll a bit along the stony shore;
then plunged in for a swim. It was just the right temperature, with
dense jungle banks on either side like great green unscalable walls,
the water clear and a bit over waist deep in the middle of the stream.
Now and then around the one or the other bend came a cayuca, the native
dug-out made of the hollowed trunk of a tree, usually the cedro--though
to a jungle native any tree is a "cedro" if he does not happen to think
of its right name. Twenty to thirty feet long, sometimes piled high
with vegetables, sometimes with several natives seated Indian file in
the bottom, the gunwales a bare two or three inches above the water,
they needed nice management, especially in the rapids below Cruces. The
locomotive power, generally naked to the waist, stood up in the craft
and climbed his polanca, or long pike pole, hand over hand, every naked
brown muscle in play, moving in perfect rhythm and apparent ease even
up-stream against the powerful current.
Soon after Chagres and trail parted company, the former to wind on up
through the jungle hills to its birthplace in the land of Darien and
wild Indians, the latter to strike for the Pacific. Over a mildly rough
country it led, down into tangled ravines, up over dense forested
hillocks where the jungle had been fought back by Uncle Sam and on the
brows of which I halted to drink of the fresh breeze sweeping across
from the Atlantic. All this time not a suggestion of anything Greek,
though I managed by some simple strategy to cast a sweeping glance into
every hovel along the way.
Then came the real Cruces trail--the rest only follows the general
direction. I fell upon it unexpectedly. It is still there as it was
when the Peruvian viceroys and their glittering trains clattered along
it, surprisingly well preserved; a cobbled way some three feet wide of
that rough and bumpy variety the Spaniard even to-day fancies a real
road, broken in places but still well marked, leading away southward
through the wilderness.
Overhead were tall spreading trees laden with blossomless orchids.
Under some of them was broad grassy shade; but the surrounding wall of
vegetation cut off all breeze. The way was intersected by many roads of
leaf-cutting ants, as level, wide and well-built in their proportion as
the old Roman highways, with such an industrious throng going and
coming upon them as one could find nowhere equaled, unless it be on the
Grand Trunk Road of India.
Then suddenly there appeared the hut that had been described to me. I
surrounded it and, hand upon the butt of my No. 38, closed in upon the
place, then rushed it with all forces.
There was not a sign of human life in the vicinity. The door was tied
shut with a single strand of old rope, but there was no question that
the fugitive might be hiding inside, for the reed walls had holes in
them large enough to drive a sheep through, and there was nothing
within to hide behind. I thrust an arm through an opening and dragged
the large and heavy earthenware water-jar to me for a drink, and pushed
on.
Squatter's cabins were now appearing, as contrasted with the native
bushman's peaked hut; sleeping-places thrown together of tin cans,
boxes and jungle rubbish, many negro shanties built of I. C. C.
scraps--all of which announced the vicinity of the canal. Any hut might
be a hiding-place. I made ostensibly casual inquiries, interlarded
between stories, at several of them, and at length established that the
Greek had been there not long before, but was elsewhere now. Then about
four of the afternoon I burst out suddenly in sight of a broad modern
highway, and leaving the ancient route as it headed away toward Old
Panama, I turned aside to the modern city.
Then I was "called off the Greek chase"; and a couple of evenings
later, along with the evening train and the evening fog, the Inspector
"blew in" from his forty-two days' vacation in the States, like a
breath from far-off Broadway. Buffalo Bill had been duly opened and
started on his season's way, the absent returned, and Corporal Castillo
suddenly dwindled again to a mere corporal.
As everything must have its flaws, perhaps the chief one that might be
charged against the Z. P. is "red tape." Strictly speaking it is no Z.
P. fault at all, but a weakness of all government. One example will
suffice.
During the month of May I was assigned the investigation of certain
alleged conditions in Panama's restricted district. The then head of
the plain-clothes division gave me carte blanche, but suggested that I
need not spare my expense account in libating the various
establishments until I "got acquainted" sufficiently with the inmates
to pick up indirectly the information desired.
Which general line I followed and, the information having been gathered
and the report made up, I proceed to make out my expenditures of $45
for the month to forward to Empire for reimbursement. Now it needs no
deep detective experience to know that in such cases you naturally
begin with, "Well, what you going to drink, girls?" and end by paying
the bill in a lump sum--a large lump sum--and go your way in peace.
What more then could I do than set down such items as:
"May 12, Liquor, investigation, Panama--$6.50?"
But here I began to feel the tangling strands. Was it not stated that
all applications for reimbursement required an exact itemized account
of each separate expenditure, with the price of each? It did. But in
the first place I did not know half the beverages consumed in that
investigation by sight, smell, or name. In the second place I came
ostensibly as a "rounder"; it would perhaps have been advisable at the
close of each evening's entertainment to draw out note-book and pencil
and starting the round of the table announce:
"Now, girls, I'm a dee-tective. No, keep yer places, I ain't going to
pinch nobody. Anyhow I'm only a Zone detective. But I just want to ask
you a few questions. Now, Mamie, what's that you're drinking? Ah! A gin
ricky. And just how much does that cost--here? And you, Flossie? An
absinthe frappe? Ah! Very good. And what is the retail price of that
particular drink?"--and so on ad nauseum.
"Very true," replied authority, "that would of course be impossible.
But to be reimbursed you must set down in detail every item of
expenditure, and its price."
Reason and government red tape move in two parallel lines, with the
usual meeting-place.
Nor was that all. While the black Peruvian was on my staff I gave him
money for food. It was not merely expected, it was definitely so
ordered. Yet when I set down:
"May 27, To Peruvian for food--$.50." authority threw up its hands in
horror. Did I not know that reimbursements were ONLY for "liquor and
cigars, cab or boat hire, and meals away from home?" I did. But I also
knew that superiors had ordered me to feed the Peruvian. "To be sure!"
cried astounded authority. "But you set down such an expenditure as
follows:
"'May 27, Two bottles of beer, Pan., investigation--$.50.'
"And as you are allowed cab fare ONLY for yourself, when you take the
Peruvian or any one else out to Balboa in a cab you set down the item:
"'May 26, Cab, Ancon to Balboa AND RETURN, investigation--$1.'"
The upshot of all which was, not feeling able with all my patriotism to
"set up" $45 worth of mixed drinks for Uncle Sam, I was forced to open
another investigation and gather from all the Z. P. authorities on the
subject, from Naos Island to Paraiso, the name and price of every known
beverage. Then when I had fitted together a picture puzzle of these
that summed up to the amount I had actually spent, I was called upon to
sign a statement thereunder that "this is a true and exact account of
expenditures during the month of May. So help me God."
But then, as I have said before, these things are not Z. P. faults,
they are the faults of government since government began.
It had become evident soon after the Inspector's return that unless
crime began to pick up down at the Pacific end of the Zone, I should
find myself again banished to the foreign land of Gatun. For there had
been a distinct rise in the criminal commodity at that end during the
past weeks. The premonition soon fell true.
"Take the 10:55 to Gatun," said the Inspector one morning, without
looking up from his filing case, "Corporal Macey will tell you about it
when you get there."