Havas 1 or to negotiate with it; to get back into the political game and, having cautiously reached the cabinet, to pit the combined forces of the cabinet and a bought public opinion against the Parliament. There lay the power. But today his dreams were out of the question: the rapid growth of his Indo-Chinese enterprises had involved the entire Ferral group in the commercial penetration of the Yangtze basin, Chiang Kai-shek was marching- on Shanghai with the revolutionary army, the crowd, more and more dense, was pressing against his doors. There was not a single company owned or controlled in China by the Franco-Asiatic Consortium which was not affected: those for naval constructions, at Hong Kong, by the insecurity of navigation; aU the others- public works, constructions, electricity, insurance, banks — by war and the Communist menace. What they imported remained in their warehouses in Hong Kong or Shanghai; what they exported, in their Hankow warehouses, sometimes on the wharves.
The car stopped. The silence-Chinese crowds are usually among the noisiest-seemed to forbode the end of the world. A cannon-shot. The revolutionary army, so near? No: it was the noon-day cannon. The crowd scattered: the car did not move. Ferral seized the speaking-tube. No answer: the chauffeur, the valet were gone.
He remained motionless-stupefied-in the motionless car which the crowd circled clumsily. The nearest shopkeeper came out, carrying on his shoulder an enormous shutter; he turned round, nearly smashed one of the glass panes of the car: he was closing his shop. To the right, to the left, ahead of him, other shopkeepers, other artisans came out, with shutters covered with characters on their shoulders. The general strike was beginning.
1 The leading French news-gathering and publicity syndicate.
This time it was not the Hong Kong strike, slowly set under way, epic, dismaclass="underline" it was an army maneuver. As far as his eye could reach there was not a shop remaining open. He must leave as quickly as possible; he got out, called a rickshaw. The coolie did not answer him: he was running at top speed for shelter, almost alone on the street, now, with the abandoned car: the crowd had just surged back towards the sidewalks. “They’re afraid of the machine-guns,” thought Ferral. The children, no longer playing, were scurrying between legs, through the swarming agitation of the sidewalks. A silence full of lives at once remote and very near, like that of a forest saturated with insects; the siren of a cruiser rose, then became lost. Ferral walked towards his house as fast as he could, hands in pockets, shoulders and chin thrust forward. Two sirens took up in unison, an octave higher, the cry of the one that had just died down, as if some enormous creature, enveloped in this silence, were thus announcing its coming. The entire city was on guard.
One o’clock in the afternoon
“Five minutes to,” said Ch’en.
The men of his group were waiting. They were all spinning-mill workers, clad in blue denim; he wore their garb. All of them shaved, all lean, all vigorous: before Ch’en, death had made its selection. Two were holding rifles under one ^m, the barrels towards the ground. Seven carried revolvers from the Shantung; one, a grenade; a few others had some hidden in their pockets. About thirty held knives, clubs, bayonets; eight or ten, without weapons, were crouched beside piles of rags, kerosene cans, rolls of wire. An adolescent was examining large broad-headed tacks which he pulled out of a sack as though they were seeds: “Surely longer than horse-shoes. ” A Court of Miracles,1 but composed of men united by a bond of hatred and decision.
He was not one of them. In spite of the murder, in spite of his presence. If he were to die today, he would die alone. For them everything was simple: they were $oing forth to conquer their bread and their dignity. For. he did not even know how to speak to them, except of their pain and of their common battle At least he knew that the strongest of bonds is battle. And the battle was here.
They got up, sacks on their backs, cans in their hands, wire under their arms. It was not yet raining; the gloom of this empty street which a dog crossed in two leaps, as if some instinct had warned him of what was impending, was as deep as the silence. Five shots went off in a nearby street: three together, another, still another. “It's starting," said Ch’en. The silence returned, but it no longer seemed to be the same. Suddenly it was filled by the clatter of horses’ hoofs, hurried, coming nearer and nearer. And, like the vertical laceration of lightning after a prolonged thunder, while they still saw nothing, a tumult suddenly filed the street, composed of mingled cries, shots, furious whinnyings, the falling of bodies; then, as the subsiding clamor was heavily choking under the indestructible silence, there rose a cry as of a dog howling lugubriously, cut short: a man with his throat slashed.
At a run they quickly reached a more important street. All the shops were closed. On the ground, three
1 A guaner of old Paris, between the rue Reaumur and rue du Caire; It served as a retreat for beggars, vagabonds and oudaws who 1iled the capital in the Middle Ages.
bodies; above, streaked with telegraph wires, the restless sky darkened by clouds of black smoke; at the end of the street, some twenty horsemen (there was very little cavalry at Shanghai) were turning hesitantly, not seeing the insurgents clinging to the wall with their instruments, their glance fixed on the hesitant movements of the horses. Ch'en could not think of attacking them: his men were too poorly armed. The insurgents turned to the right, finally reached a police station: the sentinels, without a word, followed Ch'en in.
The policemen were playing cards. Their guns and Mausers were in the rack. The non-commissioned officer in command opened a window, shouted into a dark court:
“All you who hear me are witness to the violence which is being done us. You see that we are obliged to yield to force!”
He was going to shut the window again; Ch’en held it open, looked: no one in the court. But appearances had been saved, and the theatrical gesture had been made at the right moment. Ch’en knew his compatriots: since this fellow was “playing the part,” he would not act. He distributed the arms among his men. The rioters left, all armed this time: useless to occupy the small disarmed police-stations. The policemen hesitated. Three got up and wanted to follow them. (Perhaps there would be plunder.) Ch'en had difficulty in getting rid of them. The others picked up the cards and went on play- mg.
“If they win,” said one, “perhaps we'll get paid this month?”
“Perhaps,” answered the non-commissioned officer. He dealt the cards.
“But if they’re beaten, perhaps we’ll be accused of treason.”
“What could we have done? We yielded to force. We are al witnesses that we did not betray.”
They were reflecting, their necks drawn in-cormorants crushed by thought.
“We are not responsible,” said one.
Al approved. They got up nevertheless and went to continue their game in a neighboring shop, the proprietor not daring to put them out. Only a pile of uniforms remained in the center of the station.
Elated and wary, Ch’en, followed by his men, was walking towards one of the central posts: “All is well,” he was thinking, “but those men are almost as poor as we. " The White Russians and the soldiers of the ^anored train would certainly fight. The officers too. Distant explosions, muffled as though the low sky had weakened them, were beating the air near the center of the city.
At a street-crossing, the troop-all the men anned now, even those carrying the cans-hesitated a moment, looked about. From the cruisers and the steamships unable to discharge their cargoes rose the oblique masses of smoke which the heavy wind scattered in the direction of the insurgents’ path, as if the sky were participating in the insurrection. The next station was an old red brick building, two stories high; there were two sentinels, one on each side of the door, bayonets fixed to their rifles. Ch’en knew that the special police had been on the alert for three days, and that their men were worn out by the uninterrupted vigil. There were officers here, some fifty Mauserists of the police-well paid-and ten soldiers. To live, to Jive at least through the next week! Ch’en had stopped at the comer of the street. The arms were no doubt in the racks on the ground-floor, in the right-hand room, the guard-room, which led to the office of an officer; Ch’en and two of his men had gone in there several times during the week. He chose ten men without guns, made them hide the revolvers in their blouses, and advanced with them. Once beyond the corner, the sentinels watched them approach. As they were suspicious of everyone, they had ceased to be suspicious of anyone in particular; workers’ delegations often came to parley with the officer, usually to bring him tips, an operation which required many guarantees and persons.