>>>  YOU ARE VIEWING A 200 LINE SAMPLE OF EBOOK# E05452  <<<

TITLE: ZONE POLICEMAN 88
AUTHOR: HARRY A. FRANCK
EBOOK: E05452 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

ZONE POLICEMAN 88

A CLOSE RANGE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS WORKERS

BY HARRY A. FRANCK

Author of "A Vagabond Journey Around the World" and "Four Months
Afoot in Spain"

TO A HOST OF GOOD FELLOWS THE ZONE POLICE

Quito, December 31, 1912

CHAPTER I

Strip by strip there opened out before me, as I climbed the
"Thousand Stairs" to the red-roofed Administration Building, the
broad panorama of Panama and her bay; below, the city of closely
packed roofs and three-topped plazas compressed in a scallop of
the sun-gleaming Pacific, with its peaked and wooded islands to
far Taboga tilting motionless away to the curve of the earth;
behind, the low, irregular jungled hills stretching hazily off
into South America. On the third-story landing I paused to wipe
the light sweat from forehead and hatband, then pushed open the
screen door of the passageway that leads to police headquarters.

"Emm--What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain,"
looking up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round
in his swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me.

"None."

"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the
silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's"
face the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you
applying here for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of
putting in a word for myself or lose the day entirely.

"But I speak Spanish and--"

"Ah!" cried "the Captain," with the rising inflection of awakened
interest, "That puts another face on the matter."

Slowly his eyes wandered, with the far-away look of inner
reflection, to the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite
side of the broad flat desk, then out the wide-open window and
across the shimmering roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of
the youthful Republic, ablaze with the unbroken tropical sunshine.
The whirr of a telephone bell broke in upon his meditation. In
sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered the questions that came to
him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and pushed the apparatus
away from him with a forceful gesture.

"Inspector:" he called suddenly; but a moment having passed
without response, he went on in his sharp-cut tones, "How do you
think you would like police work?"

"I believe I should."

"The Captain" shuffled for a moment one of several stacks of
unfolded letters on his desk.

"Well, it's the most thankless damned job in Creation," he went
on, almost dreamily, "but it certainly gives a man much touch with
human nature from all angles, and--well, I suppose we do some
good. Somebody's got to do it, anyway."

"Of course I suppose it would depend on what class of police work
I got," I put in, recalling the warning of the writer of my letter
of introduction that, "You may get assigned to some dinky little
station and never see anything of the Zone,"--"I'm better at
moving around than sitting still. I notice you have policemen on
your trains, or perhaps in special duty languages would be--"

"Yes, I was thinking along that line, too," said "the Captain."

He rose suddenly from his chair and led the way into an adjoining
room, busy with several young Americans over desks and
typewriters.

"Inspector," he said, as a tall and slender yet muscular man of
Indian erectness and noticeably careful grooming rose to his feet,
"Here's one of those rare people, an American who speaks some
foreign languages. Have a talk with him. Perhaps we can arrange to
fix him up both for his good and our own."

"Ever done police duty?" began the Inspector, when "the Captain"
had returned to the corner office.

"No."

"Military ser--"

"Nor that either."

"Well, we usually require it," mused the Inspector slowly,
flashing his diamond ring, "but with your special qualifications
perhaps--

"You'd probably be of most use to us in plain clothes," he
continued, after a dozen questions as to my former activities; "We
could put you in uniform for the first month or six weeks until
you know the Isthmus, and then--

"Our greatest trouble is burglary," he broke off abruptly, rising
to reach a copy of the "Canal Zone Laws"; "If you have nothing
else on hand you might run these over; and the 'Police Rules and
Regulations,'" he added, handing me a small, flat volume bound in
light brown imitation leather.

I sat down in an arm-chair against the wall and fell to reading,
amid the clickity-click of typewriters, telephone calls even from
far-off Colon on the Atlantic, and the constant going and coming
of a negro orderly in shiningly ironed khaki uniform. By and by
the Inspector drifted into the main office, where his voice
blended for some time with that of "the Captain," At length he
came back bearing a copy of the day's Star and Herald, turned back
to the "Estrella de Panama" pages so rarely opened in the Zone.

"Just run us off a translation of that, if you don't mind," he
said, pointing to a short paragraph in Spanish.

Some two minutes later I handed him the English version of the
account of a near-duel between two Panamanians, and took once more
to reading. It was more than an hour later that I was again
interrupted.

"You'll want to catch the 5:25 back to Corozal?" inquired the
Inspector;" Mr.---, give him transportation to Culebra and back,
and an order for physical examination.

"You might fill out this application blank," he added, handing me
a long legal sheet, "then in case you are appointed that much will
be done."

The document began with the usual, "Name----, Birthplace----, and
so on." There followed the information that the appointee "must be
at least five feet eight; weigh one hundred and forty, chest at
least thirty-four inches--" Then suddenly near the bottom of the
back of the sheet my eyes caught the startling words;--"Unless you
are sure you are a man of physical appearance far above the
average do not fill out this application."

I was suddenly aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of my
stomach; the blank all but slipped from my nerveless fingers. Then
all at once there came back to me the words of some chance
acquaintance of some far-off time and place, words which were the
only memory that remained to me of the speaker, except that he had
lived long and gathered much experience, "Bluff, my boy, is what
carries a man through the world. Act as if you're sure you are and
can and you'll generally make the other fellow think so." I sat
down at a desk and filled out the application in my most self-
confident flourish.

"Go to Culebra to-morrow," said the Inspector, as I bade the room
good-day and stepped forth with my most military stride and
bearing, "and report back here Friday morning."

I descended to the world below, not by the long perspective of
stairs that leads down and across the gully to the heart of Ancon,
but by a short-cut that took me quickly into a foreign land. The
graveled highway at the foot of the hill I might not have guessed
was an international boundary had I not chanced to notice the
instant change from the trim, screened Zone buildings, each in its
green lawn, to the featureless architecture of a city where grass
is all but unknown; for the formalities of crossing this frontier
are the same as those of crossing any village street. It was my
first entrance into the land of the panamenos, technically known
on the Zone as "Spigoties," and familiarly, with a tinge of
despite, as "Spigs"; because the first Americans to arrive in the
land found a few natives and cabmen who claimed to "Speaga dee
Eng-leesh."

To Americans direct from the States Panama city ranks still as
rather a miserable dawdling village. But that is due chiefly to
lack of perspective. Against the background of Central America it
seemed almost a great, certainly a flourishing, city. Even to-day
there are many who complain of its unpleasant odors; to those who
have lived in other tropical cities its scent is like the perfumes
of Araby; and none but those can in any degree realize what "Tio
Sam" has done for the place.

Toward sunset I passed through a gateway with scores of fellow-
countrymen, all as composedly at home as in the heart of their
native land. Across the platform stood a train distinctively
American in every feature, a bilious-yellow train divided by the
baggage car into two sections, of which the five second-class
coaches behind the engine, with their wooden benches, were densely
packed in every available space with workmen and laborer's wives,
from Spaniards to ebony negroes, with the average color decidedly
dark. In the first-class cars at the Panama end were Americans,
all but exclusively white Americans, with only here and there a
"Spigoty" with his long greased hair, his finger rings, and his
effeminate gestures, and even a negro or two. For though Uncle Sam
may permit individual states to do so, he may not himself openly
abjure before the world his assertion as to the equality of all
men by enacting "Jim Crow" laws.

<<<  END OF SAMPLE... (THE FULL EBOOK HAS 348935 TOTAL CHARACTERS)  >>>