<h2 id="c12"><span class="small">CHAPTER XII</span> <br/>Shooting the Yangtze Rapids</h2>
<p>Eerie silence spread over the jungle following the
machine-gun firing. The jungle was holding its breath.
The monkeys, birds, even the cicadas, stopped their
endless chattering and calling for several moments.
Chuba sat rigid, his fists clenched, as fear tore at his
nerves. Biff! What had happened to his friend Biff?</p>
<p>What could he do? What was there to do? The
questions whirled in his head. No sensible answers
came. If he went back down the trail toward the
river, he might run into the guards, still prowling,
ready to let loose their deadly spray of bullets at the
slightest strange sound or movement. But what about
Biff? Had those shots been directed at him? And had
they reached him? Chuba shuddered at the thought.</p>
<p>After waiting as long as his worried mind would
permit him, Chuba decided to investigate. On his stomach,
he wormed his way toward the path. At the edge
of the brush, he stopped. For minutes he lay still, listening,
listening, straining his ears to catch any sound
that might warn him of the guards’ presence.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</div>
<p>“It’s all right,” he told himself, trying desperately to
rebuild his courage. “They’ve gone back to the clearing.
It’s safe for me to explore.”</p>
<p>Just as Chuba snaked his body halfway out on the
trail, he tensed. He heard a noise behind him. Not
much of a noise, only the faintest rustle in the brush.
Quickly the native boy worked his way backward off
the trail.</p>
<p>Again he heard the noise, slightly louder this time.
An animal, a snake? Chuba knew that his knife, long
and sharp as it was, would be little protection against
a jungle animal. And even less against guards armed
with rapid-fire weapons.</p>
<p>Then he caught another faint sound, soft, so soft as
to be barely heard.</p>
<p>“Eeeee-owieeeee.” Silence. Then, slightly louder,
“Yow ... Yow.”</p>
<p>Chuba’s face brightened. “Caww ... caww,” he
answered.</p>
<p>“Chuba” was the one word whispered in reply to
his crow call.</p>
<p>The native boy wiped his forehead with his forearm
and sighed in relief. It was Biff. It had to be. Biff
was all right.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</div>
<p>“Biff?” Chuba called in a squeaky voice. The boy
scrambled to the edge of the trail again. He looked
carefully to his right, down the trail toward the river.
Then he looked left, where the Comanche call had
been sounded. He saw Biff’s stained face poke out of
the bushes about ten feet away. A big grin showed
white teeth even whiter against his brown face.</p>
<p>The two boys wasted no time in talk. They made
tracks, and fast, away from the river, away from the
border guard. After an hour of steady traveling,
Chuba darted off the main path, following a little used
one deep into the bush.</p>
<p>“We rest here,” Chuba said, gasping for breath.</p>
<p>“Okay by me,” said Biff. It seemed to him that
every bone, every muscle in his body ached. The struggle
through the jungle growth, the tension of making
the river crossing, had worn both boys out. Both were
only too happy to stretch out and let their bodies regain
strength.</p>
<p>“So this is China,” Biff said wearily.</p>
<p>He sat up, dug into his bundle, and took out a small
bottle of antiseptic. This he rubbed over the scratches
on his legs and arms. He handed the bottle to Chuba.
Then he took out a large tube of insect repellant. Flies
and mosquitoes had formed a small cloud around the
two.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Chuba asked. “I heard much
gun shoots. I worry. I think maybe they shoot Biff.”</p>
<p>“They tried to, Chuba. I fooled ’em, though.”</p>
<p>“How you do this?”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</div>
<p>“Well, I got across the river all right without being
seen. Those guards really jumped when they heard
you call. I’d gone maybe fifty feet down the trail, on
this side, when I heard the guards coming back out of
the brush, back to the trail. So I dived into a thicket
and crawled away from the trail. I don’t know how
long I waited. Then I heard the guards getting nearer
the spot where I was hiding.”</p>
<p>“They almost find you?”</p>
<p>“Darn near it. I don’t believe they could have been
more than ten feet from me at one time. That’s
when I figured I had to do something. I found a stick
about three feet long and as thick as your arm. I heard
the guards talking to one another. Then I hurled the
stick as far as I could. It crashed in the brush, made
quite a noise. Just what I wanted. The guards rushed
back down the trail toward the spot where the stick
landed. Then they opened up. That’s the shooting you
heard.”</p>
<p>Chuba smiled. “I bet they cut big hole in underbrush
with those bullets.”</p>
<p>“But we fooled them, Chuba. We got across.”</p>
<p>“Now we better get moving again,” the boy was
suddenly very businesslike. “Not far from here is
small village. When we get there, we take main road.
Now we’re inside China, no more have to take to secret
trails and paths. We just two Chinese beggar
boys.”</p>
<p>By nightfall the boys had reached the crumbling
gray wall surrounding a small village.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</div>
<p>“In this village,” said Chuba, “lives the young
brother of my father. He will give us shelter for the
night.”</p>
<p>The boys passed through the village gate. Biff saw a
small, rust-stained cannon seemingly hanging down
from the wall on one side of the gate. At the other
side, another cannon lay in the dirt at the base of the
wall. It had long since broken away from its emplacement.
Once, many years ago, these cannon protected
the village from the raids of bandits. But now, the
wall was crumbling in many places, and the city was
open to anyone wishing to enter.</p>
<p>Biff and Chuba made their way along a narrow, dirt
street, lined with small houses made of thatch and
mud. Men, women, and children, all poorly dressed,
moved back and forth, at times filling the street until
it was difficult for the boys to make their way.</p>
<p>They reached the end of the street, a distance of not
much more than a quarter of a mile. Chuba cut off to
his left toward a house standing just inside the gray
wall, but somewhat removed from the other houses.</p>
<p>“The house of my uncle,” Chuba said, pointing.</p>
<p>Biff was glad to leave the street. It was littered with
trash, and the smells were sickening.</p>
<p>“When we are inside the house of my uncle, you
must not say a single word,” Chuba warned. “I do
not want even him to know you are America boy. I
tell him you can hear but cannot talk. I tell him we on
our way to visit the older brother of my father, he
who lives on the banks of the Yangtze River.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</div>
<p>The house was roughly made of earthen bricks and
thatched with wheat straw. A small man stood at the
entrance to the house. The doorway was closed only
by a drooping cloth, sewn together from several grain
bags.</p>
<p>Chuba bowed low as he approached his uncle. They
spoke together rapidly. Biff, of course, could not understand
a single word spoken. Chuba turned to him.</p>
<p>“My uncle welcomes us. He says we may sleep here,
and he will feed us. Come, we go in.”</p>
<p>The floor of the house was earth, worn smooth and
packed hard by the feet of three generations of the
uncle’s family. A Chinese woman looked at the boys
as they entered, but spoke no word of greeting. She
was the uncle’s wife. Two children, each younger and
smaller than Chuba, stared at the boys, their eyes
round with wonder at seeing strangers.</p>
<p>Chuba’s uncle spoke to his wife. Minutes later she
brought both the boys a small portion of rice, served
in an earthen saucer. The rice had little or no flavor for
Biff. But it was hot, and he ate every grain.</p>
<p>Night had fallen. The only light came from the fire
in the open oven set in one wall of the house.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</div>
<p>The uncle spoke again to Chuba, and the boy nodded
and motioned Biff to follow. The uncle took them
into a small room which was to be their sleeping room.
There were only three rooms in the house. Biff looked
about him. The room was bare except for one low
bench standing in the center. They would sleep that
night on the dirt floor. And sleep they did, as if they
were in the most comfortable beds ever made. At
dawn, with another small bowl of rice to warm their
stomachs, the boys were on their way again.</p>
<p>The boys crossed the Plateau of Yunnan and
reached Chaochiang on the Yangtze River. This was
the small town where the older brother of Chuba’s
father lived. From this uncle, Chuba borrowed a
crudely built small boat, held together with wire and
wooden pegs. Two cumbersome, double-bladed oars
would be power. The boat was to be left at Sundhiango,
a village about one hundred miles west of
Chungking. Chuba’s uncle would get it on his next
trip to the large city.</p>
<p>The Yangtze River, rising out of the mountains of
Tibet on its 3,500 mile course to the Yellow Sea, flows
swiftly in the western part of China. The ugly, yellow
water roars through chasms, with lofty crags on
either side rising 300 feet high. The little boat, Biff in
the bow, Chuba in the stern, raced along like a small
chip of wood. It was fun at first after the tiring days of
fighting their way through the jungle on foot. They
sped through gorges, putting mile after mile behind
them. As they neared Sundhiango, the river widened.
Boiling white water told Biff that they were getting
into shallower water. A roar from ahead told him
they were approaching rapids.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</div>
<p>They shot the first three rapids without trouble,
then entered a broad, smooth stretch of water where
they drifted slowly with the current. Rounding a sharp
bend, Biff again heard the roar of white water. This
time the roar was louder than before. The small craft
suddenly picked up speed. The boat plunged into the
swirling, dashing water and was tossed about as if it
were a twig. Time and again, it seemed the boat would
crash on a huge boulder. Each time the current swirled
it around just in time to prevent a smashup.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, Biff could see the end of the rapid.
The round swell of the water was a warning—falls
ahead! There must be a drop of several feet, Biff
figured. He couldn’t see directly beyond the falls. All
that was visible was a broad body of water beyond—smooth,
quiet, wide enough to be a small lake.</p>
<p>There was nothing to do but pray that the boat
would get safely over the falls and into the calm water
beyond.</p>
<p>“Hold on, Chuba!” Biff called. Oars were useless
now.</p>
<p>The boat was caught up in a natural spillway, a narrow,
fast-moving path of water which shot over the
falls and plunged downward. The boat shot over the
spillway. For moments, it seemed to hang in mid-air.
Then it hit the water below with a bone-jarring smack.</p>
<p>“We made it!” Biff cried jubilantly, turning to look
back at Chuba. Chuba had disappeared. He had been
thrown out of the boat as it leaped over the falls. Biff
spotted his friend’s head in the water twenty feet this
side of the falls.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</div>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/p04.jpg" alt="Shooting the rapids" width-obs="600" height-obs="391" /></div>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</div>
<p>“Have a good swim, Chuba,” Biff shouted gaily.
“I’ll wait for you.” Biff reset the oars and leaned them
on his knees. “Hey, chum, not so much splash—”
Biff’s happy call faded out. Chuba was floundering in
the water. His arms stopped thrashing and his head
went out of sight. Then it bobbed into view, only to
sink a second time.</p>
<p>With a start, Biff realized that Chuba couldn’t swim.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</div>
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