Undercover - In China - Book 7

Part 53 - The Long River

When the wind picked up a little, Miguel and I hauled the sail up while Licia and Chen Ling gave us our breakfast of cold rice. I gave up trying to eat the rice with bamboo chopsticks and used my fingers. It is amazing how good cold, boiled rice tastes when you're hungry. 

 'What do you think?' I asked. 'Did we sail about 100 km yesterday.' 

 'That means another three days,' Denny said.

'If the wind drops,' Miguel pointed out, 'it might take longer. Perhaps we should keep travelling at night. We can take turns sleeping.'

We sailed all morning, through a dull grey drizzle, without seeing a single boat which Chen Ling thought was very odd. Eventually, we stopped to beg some drinking water from a man repairing a fishing net on the shore. He gave us some boiling water from a pot on a little cooking fire and Chen Ling used it to make tea which we shared with him. The hot drink warmed us up wonderfully.

The fisherman confirmed that it was more than two day's journey to Xiacou at the junction of the Han and Yangste rivers. (The modern city is called Wuhan, recently in the news as the source of the Covid virus). 

He warned us to stay close to the south shore to avoid Cho Cho's soldiers who were camped all along the north shore and confiscating all boats, which explained the absence of fishermen. As we filled our bottle with hot tea, his wife shyly invited us into the little house for a fried fish lunch. We were too hungry to refuse.

The little, one room house was filled with dried fish hanging from every part of the thatched roof. An old lady sat in front of a hand loom dangling a spinning object from her hand. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I saw that she was picking up fibres from a pile and spinning them together to form a thread. Nearby, a tiny girl was hitting bundles of dry plant stems with a piece of wood to separate the fibres from the woody part of the stems. 

 As we waved goodbye, Licia said, 'They are so poor. I gave the lady some of our rice and she was pathetically grateful. They didn't have anything, except fish, to eat.'

The wind died around sun set and then Miguel rowed while Licia steered and Chen Ling and I tried to sleep. When Miguel got tired, I took over. The sky was clear and a half moon gave enough light for me to make out the shore-line but it grew very cold and a mist rose off the river. We drifted passed the glow of hundreds of camp fires along the north shore. Eventually, I got tired of rowing and switched places with Chen Ling. 

A piercing gray light woke me from a dream that the boat was aground in a freezing cold desert. The boat seemed to be floating in a grey void and Chen Ling was curled up on the thwart (a board across the middle of the boat) with part of the sail draped over her. Denny was asleep on the tiller. The oars trailed alongside. 

 There was no wind and a thick fog hid the shorelines. The blinding light was the sun filtering through the fog and reflecting off the calm surface of the river. 

Licia and Miguel were fast asleep under the reeds in the bottom of the boat.  I woke them up and Miguel took over the oars and Licia steered into the light. Chen Ling and Denny woke up long enough to crawl into the still-warm reeds. I curled up beside them but I couldn't sleep, it was too cold.

The fog lifted, little by little, until we could see the occasional fishing raft near the shore. The land was higher now and the river flowed past rocky cliffs with occasional marshy areas. A few herons were fishing in the shallow water under the banks and a flock of crows cawed noisily. We began to see tents, watch towers and flags of the Southland army as we got closer to the south shore.

The wind picked up and we sailed until midday when a Southland patrol boat stopped us. We were escorted to a suspicious officer on the shore who interrogated us for about an hour. After Denny and Chen Ling convinced him that we had urgent information for Kongming, he ordered a patrol boat to take us to the main Southland camp at Red Cliffs. 

 The captain of the patrol boat introduced himself cheerfully. 'My name is Wu Jun. I'm the captain of this mighty ship. My job is to steer and make sure these six lazy misfits row hard. He introduced the crew so fast we didn't catch their names but they each stood up and bowed to us in turn. 

 Denny, Miguel and I squashed into the stern of the patrol boat and we were soon on our way with and Licia and Chen Ling steering Grandpa's boat on tow behind us. The rowers kept up a fast pace as Miguel started singing, 'Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream'. 

 But that was a very short song so after that Miguel joined me in singing the sea shanty, 

'What shall we do with the drunken sailor. What do you do with a drunken sailorWhat do you do with a drunken sailor.  What do you do with a drunken sailor, earl-eye in the morning.   Tow him in the long boat 'til he's sober.   Tow him in the long boat 'til he's sober.  Tow him in the long boat 'til he's sober, earl-eye in the morning.'

'Way hay and up she rises.  Way hay up she rises.  Way hay up she rises, earl-eye in the morning.'

'Stick him in a scupper with a hosepipe on him.   Stick him in a scupper with a hosepipe on him.  Stick him in a scupper with a hosepipe on him, early in the morning! Way hay and up she rises.  Way hay up she rises.  Way hay up she rises, earl-eye in the morning.'

When Licia translated, one of the crew said loudly, 'Wu Jun! They know all about you.' Another called out, 'Tell us what to do with Wu Jun.' The rowers were laughing so much that even Wu Jun joined in and he insisted Licia teach the crew how to sing it while they all invented Mandarin lyrics to fit the song. This went on with much laughter for hours. 

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