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Men on the Horizon MEN ON THE HORIZON With Many Illustrations by the Author BY GUY MURCHIE, JR. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1tbel&ibmille tit'" £atnlltibg< COPYRIGHT, I9J2, BY GUY MURCHIE, JR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RICHT TO REf>ROD\JCit THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IS A�Y FORM CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE 1.-".S.A. ----.::.......-=. --,.... --.rrr:-:LJ:.p FOREWORD THis is why I have written this Foreword: I first became interested in Murchie; I liked his clean manhood and his ideals, none of which he seems to have lost in spite of his many experiences and hardships. When he showed me his manuscript, I began to read it because of my interest in the author, but, after the first page, I read it be­ cause of my interest in the book; and I must confess I lost hours of sleep before I finished it. This Foreword does not signify approval or disapproval of his conclusions concerning the governments of the people he has come in contact with, but l\lurchie has given me in­ formation concerning the citizens of nations he has visited which was of absorbing interest. He seems to have a gift for. observing human nature. Murchie came in close contact with the people of many countries, and he saw that, however the governments may differ, the citizens themselves were not very different from us RICHARD E. BYRD Rear-Admiral U.S.I\'., Retired CONTENTS I. THE Foc'sLE I II. ALASKA 25 Ill. HAWAII 78 IV. THE ENGINE-ROOM 98 V. jAPAN !08 \'I. CmNA '53 \'JJ. THE PHILIPPINES !78 VIII. NoRTH CHINA 189 IX. KoREA 2!8 X. RussiA 229 MEN ON THE HORIZON CHAPTER ONE THE FOC'SLE HIS is an army transport ship. It is full of recruits, Tand officers with their wives, and fat old sergeants who wander about in twos and threes telling army stories. We are bound for the Canal Zone, and from there for 'Frisco and Honolulu. I am rated as an A.B. seaman, and am writing this in the foc'sle, where I sleep along with a terrific assortment of gobs from different parts of the United States, l\1exico, South America, Scandinavia, Italy, and Palestine. They called me ' Slim' at first, but now it's ' Big Boy,' be­ cause I have such a desperate time getting into my skimpy bunk. It is in a corner and about four inches from the floor, and to get into it, I have to climb through the overripe union suit of Pinhead which always hangs airing from his bunk, a scant foot and a half over mine. I've finished this year an education supposed to prepare me for life, in a world of which I know, definitely, almost nothing. By experience in my small segment of it, I've learned that it is a world of work, and of conflicting ideas. 2. .A1en on the Horizyn..., About the rest of it I know only that it is made up of vast masses of men grouped in races and classes, unknown to each other, uninformed about each other, doubting and dis­ liking each other - and yet, all of them made in the same image and of the same material, and all human. This information, remote and theoretical, is not enough for me. I must prove to myself, through actual experience, the truth about these things. 1 must find out for myself whether it is not ignorance, and ignorance alone, that pre­ vents friendship and understanding between these masses of human beings. I cannot commit myself to doubt or dis­ trust of other men on hearsay. I want to come to some workable conclusions about this variegated world of men, and I can't do it until I have encountered it at first hand, and in the raw. So, against innumerable and highly respectable reasons for staying at home, I've determined to go around and through the northern half of the globe where, I think, I shall meet with all the elements of man's immediate drama. The southern hemisphere may be the future - but the northern seems certainly to be the seething present of the world. I intend to lay my course as close as I can to the life of the men within my changing horizons, irrespective of race, class, or condition - not so much to see, as to share, that life as deeply as I can, with my limitations of time and equipment. I have started. It is June. The towers of New York have sunk behind us, and we've kicked the dirty harbor water from beneath our keel for the long, clean surge of the At­ lantic. We are pointing southward toward Panama - the portal to the western seas and to the eastern world. The firstthing I had to do on this ship, and while she was still in dock, was to help lash the lifeboats in place and lace down their canvas covers. Then -- CJ'he Foe' sle..; 3 'Hey, you, Slim,' shouted the bosun, with gimlet eye upon me, 'go get up steam on winch number two !' He seemed to take for granted that I had been getting up steam on winches since birth, and although I had never met in person this bunch of handles, valves, and steam pipes, I sprang wildly to do his bidding. By beginner's luck, I hit upon the correct valve. But there was still time to kick me ashore if the bosun found out how little I knew - so I assumed a superior air and toyed, casually, with winch number two. \Vhen, to my great relief, we cast off, there was an in­ terval of rest, and it was at this point that I met Soapy, a sailor with a mug like the front end of a freight locomotive. 'This,' says Soapy, 'is a hellova time ter be on a boat. Keriste! Just the woist time o' year. Think what we could be doin' this summer - if we was back in New Yoik!' The men gathered around the foc'sle-head hatch to get acquainted with each other. There is Soapy, the Wop, Stuffy, Chup, Pinhead, and so on. Their opening remarks were uniformly pessimistic, their attitude disdainful. This is a social convention with sailors. 4 ./Men on the Horiz.ptL 'God, that's a lousy stink-hole they give us to sleep in.' 'Vat vor zey sheep us to zat hot Panama -- ' 'I'm thinkin' wot I'd be doin' if I was back wit' that little dame I met on Sout' Street las' night ! Th' bes' gail I ever laid me hands on !' 'Who th' hell wants ter ship on this scow, anyhow -- ' I've been assigned to lookout duty, which to me seems quite a responsibility. My watch is from eight to twelve, day and night. By day, the lookout job is nominal, as the mate is always on the bridge and the world is plain to see, so my time is spent shining bright work and scrubbing paint. But on night watch, I must report every light or ship sighted to Edwards, the mate, stating its direction in num· her of points off port or starboard bow; I must report 'lights burning bright ' on our own ship - masthead, range, and both side lights - at every bell ; and I must sec that we keep on our proper course, reporting all deviation. Except when Pete, the Danish quartermaster, ventures over to my wing of the bridge, to tell me of his eventful ten years at sea, I stand alone on this lofty station and just gaze and gaze into the wind, searching for a speck of light on the hazy dividing line between sea and sky. This lookout duty is a lonely job. But the foc'sle, with its layers of grimy tattooed human­ ity, is certainly not afflicted with loneliness. And it has in­ habitants other than humans. Last night the bedbugs were bad, and I still itch from their bites. I suppose bugs are in­ evitable - these, at any rate, are inexorable in their devo­ tion to me. Soapy does most of the talking in the foc'sle, and whether anyone wants to sleep or not. He is about as hard-boiled as the Rock of Gibraltar, and looks it. There is a special set of wrinkles on his face, developed by scowling, and all of his face not occupied by wrinkles is covered with scars of vari­ ous colors and sizes. Like many sailors, he doesn't know 'Ihe Foe'slu 5 why he goes to sea - in fact, he spends most of his time in cursing the sea and the ship in most corrupt and biological language. And yet, here he is, as usual -and he'll proba­ bly keep on coming until his dying day. The painter is something of a philosopher. This morning, reading the paper, he observed, 'Now here's a proist, leaves the choich ter go off wit' a goil. Then he shoots th' broad an' shoots himself -' pause -'Now I wonder why them people does them kinder things -- ' Before my watch last night, I found myself sitting beside the bosun on one of the foc'sle-head hatches. As I listened respectfully to this sandy-haired fellow with sharp blue eyes, he told me of his Scotch mother and his Irish father, and how he went off to sea at the age of sixteen. 'I sailed from England in 1912,' he said, 'an' I've seen plenty of the world since then - China, Australia, Cape Town, all around.
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