Books: Chinese Pirates

PIRATE JUNK—Clifford Johnson—Scribner ($2.50).

In China little boys still have the chance of growing up to be pirates. Bias Bay, No. 1 Pirate Centre of the world, is today as unsafe for peaceful merchantmen as the Spanish Main or the Barbary Coast ever were. Because Chinese pirates often disguise themselves as passengers, ships plying in those dangerous waters are fitted with “anti-piracy grilles” that screen off the deck-passengers from the rest of the vessel, prevent surprise attacks. Until last year, piracy was unknown along China’s northern coast. Then one March morning pirate junks attacked the British-owned coasting steamer Nanchang, waiting for a pilot off the mouth of the Liao River. Contrary to all rules, four British officers were captured, three of them held for ransom for five and a half dreary months. To while away the time and keep track of the days, one of them kept a diary. Enthusiastically introduced by Peter Fleming (Brazilian Adventure}, Pirate Junk is a first-rate addition to what he calls “the literary photography of experience.”

The attack was practically over before the ship’s company could recover from their surprise. Cornered in their cabins, where they had run for their guns, the four officers were bundled over the side and into the tiny glory hole of one of the junks. Three days after their capture, when the junk was anchored in a muddy tidal creek, they made their first attempt at escape. After floundering all night in oozy mud they were glad to get back to their prison. Soon one of them was sent off with a note demanding ransom. The other three settled down to wait for rescue. When searching planes came over, the pirates hid themselves and their prisoners in the reeds or shifted their anchorage. One night there was a terrific shindy; next morning the prisoners learned their captors had been hijacked by bandits. The change made little difference to them. As they picked up more of the language they heard many a bloodthirsty threat. Aside from cramped quarters, boredom, vermin, bad food, the hardest thing they had to endure was hair-pulling, nose-and-ear-tweaking. The bandits delighted in calling them names. When asked what was the English for an obscene Chinese epithet, Author Johnson replied: “Parlez vous français?” “They were delighted and they spend their time saying Parlez vous français to us. Sometimes when they are very annoyed, they say it to one another.”

Meantime devious negotiations were going on for their release, each side trying to out-Orientalize the other. At one point Manchukuoan troops attacked the bandit lair, and in the confusion the captives made their second break for freedom. But they were all caught before they had gone far. As the chase grew hotter the bandits took to land, dragged their prisoners with them on nightly forced marches. Finally, five and a half months after their capture, the ransom was paid and the three Britons were released.

Not simply because it recounts an experience few men would care to have, but because its skeleton narrative is covered with the flesh & blood of homely detail, Pirate Junk deserves a high place in the true-story library. When Author Johnson read part of his diary to his companions, they grumbled that he had left out everything important and put in irrelevancies. Plain readers will not agree with them.