Read Hiroshima Joe for Free Online Page B

he reflected, before war and revolution had split the world and sealed borders, one had been able to board a train here and step off at the Calais/Dover ferry. He had thought about that often. It had given him strength or depressed him immeasurably, depending on how he was feeling.
    He took a ten-cent coin from his pocket. It was newly-minted and shone in his palm. He flicked it casually into the air, caught it just as George Raft had in pre-war movies, then walked towards the pay stile of the Star Ferry.
    The ferry was the main passenger route across Hong Kong harbour. There were other ways to cross: the Yaumati ferry, for instance, the vehicular one upon which he had found the brooch, crossed from Jordan Road to Central District on the island of Hong Kong. But that was slightly more expensive and one seldom found Europeans travelling on it as ordinary passengers, for they usually stayed on the car and lorry deck with their saloons. And there were other ferries run by the same company as the vehicular, but they plied between small jetties dotted here and there around the shores of Kowloon and were also expensive in comparison with the Star Ferry. There were wallah-wallah boats which operated between a quay by the railway station and Blake Pier next to the Star Ferry jetty on Hong Kong-side, but they were very expensive and usually found patronage among rich Europeans and Chinese, or sailors who had missed the last night ferry and needed to get back either to HMS Tamar, the Royal Naval dockyard on the island, or to warships lying at anchor. And finally there were sampans, slow tiny craft oared across by a woman or a young girl, and which were seldom used except as a last resort, for they took upwards of an hour to cross the mile of water and were more expensive than any other mode of water transport.
    The cost of getting across the harbour mattered to Sandingham, but it was just as important to be seen travelling with his own kind, in his own eyes if not in theirs. He felt he owed it to himself to use the Star Ferry, as a mark of dignity. What is more, he would travel on the upper ten-cent deck, not on the lower five-cent one where the poor Chinese, the coolies and the amahs and the servants sat only a couple of feet above the waterline.
    The turnstile chattered as he pushed through it. Once on the ferry pier, he followed the other passengers along a planking walk that was roofed over but open on one side. A ferry had just sailed from the jetty and he had to wait a few minutes for the next one to arrive. He reached the gate at the head of the wooden slope and stood just back from it, keeping slightly apart from the gathering group of other passengers. The platform at the base of the slope shifted a foot downwards as someone unseen operated the winch. The tide was ebbing. He could hear the metal hinges of the gate stretch and squeal.
    He watched the crowd that was gathering at the gate. They were a mixed bag. Several Chinese dressed in short-sleeved shirts and slacks and carrying leather briefcases were chatting together: they were bank couriers making the last harbour crossing before public banking hours ceased. Two European women, one with a young child in hand, were talking about the merits of a tailor in Hanoi Road. A Chinese girl in her early twenties stood reading a newspaper. Beside her stood two Royal Naval officers in white tropical uniform, their long white socks contrasting with their tanned knees. Their white shoes were scuffed but otherwise they looked smart and orderly; one held a document case to the side of his starched shorts. Two European businessmen stood apart watching for the ferry to come in while an elderly American tourist and his wife fiddled with their German camera, trying to insert a new film.
    Looking down to avoid catching anyone’s eye, Sandingham saw the deep blue of the sea lolling to and fro between the planks of the pier. Sunlight striped the wavelets. He wondered how many coins might be on