Return of the Grandmothers

Schöneluft Log, 1900.06.29

Ulrik Manfred Adler, acting Captain

40.90, 114.69,  Traveling East Southeast

I fear the American Captain’s rumors are true – there is trouble in China. I did not immediately comprehend the signs before my eyes, but my suspicion grew as we entered Shandong province. Every settlement of size we flew over had one burned building! From some, smoke still dribbled from the ruins. One or two might have been accidental, but the destruction was too widespread. Someone has deliberately burned these buildings, I am sure of it, but why? Why these houses and not others?

We reached the Grandmothers’ village at noon. It was miserably hot, 110 degrees Fahrenheit midday, and I could barely force myself to don my jacket. I confess I have been working in shirtsleeves since the Gobi, as there are no ladies on board. Actually, I suppose there must indeed be ladies among the boiler crew. On occasion we have been invited to their quarters to toast another fuzzy infant. However, since I cannot tell the ladies from the men I forget myself and forgo my jacket when the temperature is over 100.

So, suitably attired and bearing the gift of six crates of ginger beer from Jamaica, (Adolphus considers it his private stock, but it seems a suitable gift, and I know better than to part with Madame’s champagne) we descended to 100 feet and approached the village.

It is apparent that there has been no rain for some time. The brown wheat stubble still dominates the fields, which should be green with the corn crop by now. They grow no rice here, unlike the rest of this enormous nation, and subsist on porridge and steamed bread, growing wheat over winter and corn in the summer. The landscape is bleak, and dust roils about the fields in the hot July wind.

I delayed my descent, searching for a more substantial gift; a village cannot live on ginger beer. I found some bags of rice in the galley. Chef must have obtained them in Saigon, although we were there only a few hours in the middle of the night. I am impressed by his ingenuity, but take the bags. He has left his precious galley unguarded, sulking in the billiard room again, for I eat little while on duty, and he has despaired of me as worth cooking for.

At the village, Mrs. Huang, Mrs. Wang, and Mrs. Wei waited on the same hill where we first found them, perhaps under the same parasol. Hovering at 70 feet, I had the crew lower me down on the cargo platform. (Although I think nothing of using the ladder at this altitude, I cannot ask the same of these venerable ladies, nor can I carry six cases of ginger beer and two hundred pounds of rice.) The next sign of trouble was the pelting rocks that hit me ten feet from the ground. The barrage came from a group of children, who fled Mrs. Wei’s scolding as I landed.

I came off the platform, nervous but ready to play the diplomat as Mein Herr had done a month ago, but Mrs. Huang and Mrs. Wang took my arms and dragged me back onto the platform. Mrs. Wang followed with their suitcase and waved the parasol at the waiting crew above.

I protested, rather pointlessly gesturing to my best linen suit and the cases of ginger beer. Mrs. Wei seized upon the latter, prying the top case open and grabbing a bottle. She shook it with surprising vigor for such an elderly person and popped the cork in the direction of the mob of children, who had reconvened with more pebbles to throw. The dousing they got convinced them to belay their attack, and gave them a taste of the treat their rudeness had lost them. I shoved the bags of rice off the platform before we got too far off the ground. The rock-throwing children were painfully thin.