Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/240

214 letter was no longer read, but the tragedy it told was woven through much of the delirious talk of the patient.

Meantime "Shorty" Blake had been routed with heavy loss among the canteens and other diversions of Tientsin, and, greatly the worse for wear, made his way to Taku and boarded a Japanese transport bound for Nagasaki. He went ashore in that entertaining port with three Mexican dollars as the melancholy remnant of his pay and travel allowance "to the place of enlistment," and presented his papers to the American quartermaster stationed in Nagasaki, who gave him an order for transportation on the next United States transport sailing for San Francisco.

Discharged Private Blake was much disconcerted when he was informed that no Government vessel was to stop en route from Manila in less than two weeks, and that he was stranded "on the beach," with several other recent losses to the fighting strength of the army in the Orient. A bundle of looted silk had been exchanged in Tientsin for bottles of astonishing Scotch whiskey made in Shanghai, and