Blood Alley Page #2

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suitable for our plan.

- The ferryboat.

- The ferryboat?

A lousy stern-wheeler?

Why, that wouldn't last 10 minutes

in Blood Alley.

I've watched that relic for two years now.

When it's not broken down,

you couldn't get 6 knots out of her.

Eight.

With that added speed, you could

probably get clear to the outer harbor...

before the patrol boat

climbed on your backs.

We have other plans for the patrol boat.

What plans have you for the gunboats

in the harbor south of here?

By voyaging only at night or in the fog,

we expect to avoid the enemy.

And I'm supposed to navigate at night,

or in a fog, without charts?

- Quite so.

- Quite so.

She's a flat-bottomed river boat...

and probably draws

about two feet of water.

The Formosa Straits is no river.

First time you hit whitecaps,

she'll break apart.

It is a solid ship,

built in your own illustrious country.

Great.

Had the eminent brother

not seen these objections...

we would think him a fool.

Quite so.

You better give me time to think.

As you wish.

Honorable Captain, I must warn you,

one of our families is unreliable.

- Commie?

- Regrettably.

Today, the Fengs are in Changchow

for a people's celebration.

Until their return,

you have the freedom of our village walls.

Freedom. Hear that, Baby?

Dandy.

- You think it's utterly mad, don't you?

- Strictly for the birds.

Look, you're caught up

in this village fever...

but the world outside

isn't running your kind of a temperature.

A trip down Blood Alley in a ferryboat

is no Sunday excursion.

Then maybe we'll go on a Monday,

hey, Baby?

- Excuse me.

- That's all right.

This is my favorite spot.

No one comes up here anymore but me.

- Live here long?

- Seven years.

- You must like it.

- Sometimes I hate it.

Sometimes I think

if I have to stay another day...

I'll turn to stone,

like everything else in Chiku Shan.

If I don't, what then?

You wait for some other China skipper

to get washed ashore?

I should think you'd be proud

to do something for these people.

There's 500 million of these people.

I don't intend to play David

to China's Goliath.

- What are they doing with those stones?

- That's one of our secrets, Capt. Wilder.

Down Blood Alley in a ferryboat.

Give it to me straight.

There must be some better reason...

why your three wise men

chose the ferryboat.

There is. Mr. Tao's nephew

is the chief engineer.

Keeping it in the family?

Your father must be a big man.

He is, here.

The Reds intend to keep him here.

- He's the only doctor along the river.

- When is he getting back?

I don't know. They flew him

all the way down to Haifeng...

to operate

on some very important commissar.

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