For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokio, shaking dice1 with the other correspondents for drinks of 'rickshaws—oh, no, that's something to ride in; anyhow, he wasn't earning the salary that his paper was paying him. But that was not Calloway's fault. The little brown men who held the strings2 of Fate between their fingers were not ready for the readers of the Enterprise to season their breakfast bacon and eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods.
But soon the column of correspondents that were to go out with the First Army tightened3 their field-glass belts and went down to the Yalu with Kuroki. Calloway was one of these.
Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River. That has been told in detail by the correspondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a distance of three miles. But, for justice's sake, let it be understood that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view.
Calloway's feat4 was accomplished5 before the battle. What he did was to furnish the Enterprise with the biggest beat of the war. That paper published exclusively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of the Russian General on the same day that it was made. No other paper printed a word about it for two days afterward6, except a London paper, whose account was absolutely incorrect and untrue.
Calloway did this in face of the fact that General Kuroki was making his moves and laying his plans with the profoundest secrecy7 as far as the world outside his camps was concerned. The correspondents were forbidden to send out any news whatever of his plans; and every message that was allowed on the wires was censored9 with rigid10 severity.
The correspondent for the London paper handed in a cablegram describing Kuroki's plans; but as it was wrong from beginning to end the censor8 grinned and let it go through.
So, there they were—Kuroki on one side of the Yalu with forty-two thousand infantry11, five thousand cavalry12, and one hundred and twenty-four guns. On the other side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three thousand men, and with a long stretch of river to guard. And Calloway had got hold of some important inside information that he knew would bring the Enterprise staff around a cablegram as thick as flies around a Park Row lemonade stand. If he could only get that message past the censor—the new censor who had arrived and taken his post that day!
Calloway did the obviously proper thing. He lit his pipe and sat down on a gun carriage to think it over. And there we must leave him; for the rest of the story belongs to Vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-week reporter on the Enterprise.
Calloway's cablegram was handed to the managing editor at four o'clock in the afternoon. He read it three times; and then drew a pocket mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk, and looked at his reflection carefully. Then he went over to the desk of Boyd, his assistant (he usually called Boyd when he wanted him), and laid the cablegram before him.
"It's from Calloway," he said. "See what you make of it."
The message was dated at Wi-ju, and these were the words of it:
Foregone preconcerted rash witching goes muffled14 rumour15 mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute16 select mooted17 parlous18 beggars ye angel incontrovertible.
Boyd read it twice.
"Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret code?" asked the m. e., who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go.
"None except the vernacular20 that the lady specials write in," said Boyd. "Couldn't be an acrostic, could it?"
"I thought of that," said the m. e., "but the beginning letters contain only four vowels22. It must be a code of some sort."
"Try em in groups," suggested Boyd. "Let's see—'Rash witching goes'—not with me it doesn't. 'Muffled rumour mine'—must have an underground wire. 'Dark silent unfortunate richmond'—no reason why he should knock that town so hard. 'Existing great hotly'—no it doesn't pan out. I'll call Scott."
The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck. A city editor must know something about everything; so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing.
"It may be what is called an inverted23 alphabet cipher," said he. "I'll try that. 'R' seems to be the oftenest used initial letter, with the exception of 'm.' Assuming 'r' to mean 'e', the most frequently used vowel21, we transpose the letters—so."
Scott worked rapidly with his pencil for two minutes; and then showed the first word according to his reading—the word "Scejtzez."
"No, that won't work," said the city editor. "It's undoubtedly25 a code. It's impossible to read it without the key. Has the office ever used a cipher code?"
"Just what I was asking," said the m.e. "Hustle26 everybody up that ought to know. We must get at it some way. Calloway has evidently got hold of something big, and the censor has put the screws on, or he wouldn't have cabled in a lot of chop suey like this."
Throughout the office of the Enterprise a dragnet was sent, hauling in such members of the staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or present, by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or length of servitude. They got together in a group in the city room, with the m. e. in the centre. No one had heard of a code. All began to explain to the head investigator27 that newspapers never use a code, anyhow—that is, a cipher code. Of course the Associated Press stuff is a sort of code—an abbreviation, rather—but—
The m. e. knew all that, and said so. He asked each man how long he had worked on the paper. Not one of them had drawn28 pay from an Enterprise envelope for longer than six years. Calloway had been on the paper twelve years.
"Try old Heffelbauer," said the m. e. "He was here when Park Row was a potato patch."
Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor29, half handy-man about the office, and half watchman—thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors. Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality.
"Heffelbauer," said the m. e., "did you ever hear of a code belonging to the office a long time ago—a private code? You know what a code is, don't you?"
"Yah," said Heffelbauer. "Sure I know vat30 a code is. Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code. Der reborters in der city-room haf it here."
"Ah!" said the m. e. "We're getting on the trail now. Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?"
"Somedimes," said the retainer, "dey keep it in der little room behind der library room."
"Can you find it?" asked the m. e. eagerly. "Do you know where it is?"
"Mein Gott!" said Heffelbauer. "How long you dink a code live? Der reborters call him a maskeet. But von day he butt31 mit his head der editor, und—"
"Oh, he's talking about a goat," said Boyd. "Get out, Heffelbauer."
Again discomfited32, the concerted wit and resource of the Enterprise huddled33 around Calloway's puzzle, considering its mysterious words in vain.
Then Vesey came in.
Vesey was the youngest reporter. He had a thirty-two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch34 plaid suit gave him presence and conferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts. He wore his hat in such a position that people followed him about to see him take it off, convinced that it must be hung upon a peg35 driven into the back of his head. He was never without an immense, knotted, hard-wood cane36 with a German-silver tip on its crooked37 handle. Vesey was the best photograph hustler in the office. Scott said it was because no living human being could resist the personal triumph it was to hand his picture over to Vesey. Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the big ones, which were sent to the rewrite men. Add to this fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves38 of the earth nothing existed that could abash39 Vesey, and his dim sketch40 is concluded.
Vesey butted41 into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer's "code" would have done, and asked what was up. Some one explained, with the touch of half-familiar condescension42 that they always used toward him. Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the m. e.'s hand. Under the protection of some special Providence43, he was always doing appalling44 things like that, and coming, off unscathed.
"It's a code," said Vesey. "Anybody got the key?"
"The office has no code," said Boyd, reaching for the message. Vesey held to it.
"Then old Calloway expects us to read it, anyhow," said he. "He's up a tree, or something, and he's made this up so as to get it by the censor. It's up to us. Gee45! I wish they had sent me, too. Say—we can't afford to fall down on our end of it. 'Foregone, preconcerted rash, witching'—h'm."
Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle softly, frowning at the cablegram.
"Let's have it, please," said the m. e. "We've got to get to work on it."
"I believe I've got a line on it," said Vesey. "Give me ten minutes."
He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a waste-basket, spread out flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard46, and started his pencil going. The wit and wisdom of the Enterprise remained in a loose group, and smiled at one another, nodding their heads toward Vesey. Then they began to exchange their theories about the cipher.
It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the m. e. a pad with the code-key written on it.
"I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it," said Vesey. "Hurrah47 for old Calloway! He's done the Japs and every paper in town that prints literature instead of news. Take a look at that."
Foregone—conclusion
Preconcerted—arrangement
Rash—act
Witching—hour of midnight
Goes—without saying
Muffled—report
Rumour—hath it
Mine—host
Dark—horse
Silent—majority
Unfortunate—pedestrians49*
Richmond—in the field
Existing—conditions
Great—White Way
Hotly—contested
Brute—force
Select—few
Mooted—question
Parlous—times
Beggars—description
Ye—correspondent
Angel—unawares
Incontrovertible—fact
*Mr. Vesey afterward explained that the logical journalistic complement51 of the word "unfortunate" was once the word "victim." But, since the automobile52 became so popular, the correct following word is now "pedestrians". Of course, in Calloway's code it meant infantry.
"It's simply newspaper English," explained Vesey. "I've been reporting on the Enterprise long enough to know it by heart. Old Calloway gives us the cue word, and we use the word that naturally follows it just as we use 'em in the paper. Read it over, and you'll see how pat they drop into their places. Now, here's the message he intended us to get."
Vesey handed out another sheet of paper.
Concluded arrangement to act at hour of midnight without saying. Report hath it that a large body of cavalry and an overwhelming force of infantry will be thrown into the field. Conditions white. Way contested by only a small force. Question the Times description. Its correspondent is unaware50 of the facts.
"Great stuff!" cried Boyd excitedly. "Kuroki crosses the Yalu to-night and attacks. Oh, we won't do a thing to the sheets that make up with Addison's essays, real estate transfers, and bowling53 scores!"
"Mr. Vesey," said the m. e., with his jollying-which-you-should-regard-as-a-favour manner, "you have cast a serious reflection upon the literary standards of the paper that employs you. You have also assisted materially in giving us the biggest 'beat' of the year. I will let you know in a day or two whether you are to be discharged or retained at a larger salary. Somebody send Ames to me."
Ames was the king-pin, the snowy-petalled Marguerite, the star-bright looloo of the rewrite men. He saw attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic, cyclones54 in the summer zephyr55, lost children in every top-spinning urchin56, an uprising of the down-trodden masses in every hurling57 of a derelict potato at a passing automobile. When not rewriting, Ames sat on the porch of his Brooklyn villa58 playing checkers with his ten-year-old son.
Ames and the "war editor" shut themselves in a room. There was a map in there stuck full of little pins that represented armies and divisions. Their fingers had been itching13 for days to move those pins along the crooked line of the Yalu. They did so now; and in words of fire Ames translated Calloway's brief message into a front page masterpiece that set the world talking. He told of the secret councils of the Japanese officers; gave Kuroki's flaming speeches in full; counted the cavalry and infantry to a man and a horse; described the quick and silent building, of the bridge at Suikauchen, across which the Mikado's legions were hurled59 upon the surprised Zassulitch, whose troops were widely scattered60 along the river. And the battle!—well, you know what Ames can do with a battle if you give him just one smell of smoke for a foundation. And in the same story, with seemingly supernatural knowledge, he gleefully scored the most profound and ponderous61 paper in England for the false and misleading account of the intended movements of the Japanese First Army printed in its issue of the same date.
Only one error was made; and that was the fault of the cable operator at Wi-ju. Calloway pointed62 it out after he came back. The word "great" in his code should have been "gage," and its complemental63 words "of battle." But it went to Ames "conditions white," and of course he took that to mean snow. His description of the Japanese army struggling through the snowstorm, blinded by the whirling flakes64, was thrillingly vivid. The artists turned out some effective illustrations that made a hit as pictures of the artillery65 dragging their guns through the drifts. But, as the attack was made on the first day of May, "conditions white" excited some amusement. But it in made no difference to the Enterprise, anyway.
It was wonderful. And Calloway was wonderful in having made the new censor believe that his jargon66 of words meant no more than a complaint of the dearth67 of news and a petition for more expense money. And Vesey was wonderful. And most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another, being oft associated, until not even obituary68 notices them do part.
On the second day following, the city editor halted at Vesey's desk where the reporter was writing the story of a man who had broken his leg by falling into a coal-hole—Ames having failed to find a murder motive69 in it.
"The old man says your salary is to be raised to twenty a week," said Scott.
"All right," said Vesey. "Every little helps. Say—Mr. Scott, which would you say—'We can state without fear of successful contradiction,' or, 'On the whole it can be safely asserted'?"
《The Stories Of O.Henry欧亨利短篇小说集》
《The Stories Of O.Henry欧亨利短篇小说集》
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1
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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censor
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| n./vt.审查，审查员；删改 | |
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censored
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| 受审查的，被删剪的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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13
itching
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| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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mooted
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| adj.未决定的，有争议的，有疑问的v.提出…供讨论( moot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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parlous
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| adj.危险的，不确定的，难对付的 | |
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cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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vernacular
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| adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名 | |
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vowel
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| n.元音；元音字母 | |
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vowels
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| n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 ) | |
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inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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charade
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| n.用动作等表演文字意义的字谜游戏 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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28
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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abash
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| v.使窘迫，使局促不安 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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butted
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| 对接的 | |
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condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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44
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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45
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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46
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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47
hurrah
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| int.好哇，万岁，乌拉 | |
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48
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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49
pedestrians
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| n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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50
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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51
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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52
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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53
bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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54
cyclones
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| n.气旋( cyclone的名词复数 )；旋风；飓风；暴风 | |
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55
zephyr
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| n.和风，微风 | |
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56
urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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57
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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59
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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60
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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61
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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complemental
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| 补足的，补充的 | |
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64
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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65
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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66
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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67
dearth
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| n.缺乏，粮食不足，饥谨 | |
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68
obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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69
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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