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ZONE POLICEMAN 88

A CLOSE RANGE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS WORKERS


BY

HARRY A. FRANCK


Author of "A Vagabond Journey Around the World" and "Four Months Afoot
in Spain"





TO A HOST OF GOOD FELLOWS THE ZONE POLICE

Quito, December 31, 1912




CHAPTER I


Strip by strip there opened out before me, as I climbed the "Thousand
Stairs" to the red-roofed Administration Building, the broad panorama
of Panama and her bay; below, the city of closely packed roofs and
three-topped plazas compressed in a scallop of the sun-gleaming
Pacific, with its peaked and wooded islands to far Taboga tilting
motionless away to the curve of the earth; behind, the low, irregular
jungled hills stretching hazily off into South America. On the
third-story landing I paused to wipe the light sweat from forehead and
hatband, then pushed open the screen door of the passageway that leads
to police headquarters.

"Emm--What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain," looking
up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round in his
swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me.

"None."

"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the
silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's" face
the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you applying here
for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of putting in a word
for myself or lose the day entirely.

"But I speak Spanish and--"

"Ah!" cried "the Captain," with the rising inflection of awakened
interest, "That puts another face on the matter."

Slowly his eyes wandered, with the far-away look of inner reflection,
to the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite side of the broad
flat desk, then out the wide-open window and across the shimmering
roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of the youthful Republic, ablaze
with the unbroken tropical sunshine. The whirr of a telephone bell
broke in upon his meditation. In sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered
the questions that came to him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and
pushed the apparatus away from him with a forceful gesture.

"Inspector:" he called suddenly; but a moment having passed without
response, he went on in his sharp-cut tones, "How do you think you
would like police work?"

"I believe I should."

"The Captain" shuffled for a moment one of several stacks of unfolded
letters on his desk.

"Well, it's the most thankless damned job in Creation," he went on,
almost dreamily, "but it certainly gives a man much touch with human
nature from all angles, and--well, I suppose we do some good.
Somebody's got to do it, anyway."

"Of course I suppose it would depend on what class of police work I
got," I put in, recalling the warning of the writer of my letter of
introduction that, "You may get assigned to some dinky little station
and never see anything of the Zone,"--"I'm better at moving around than
sitting still. I notice you have policemen on your trains, or perhaps
in special duty languages would be--"

"Yes, I was thinking along that line, too," said "the Captain."

He rose suddenly from his chair and led the way into an adjoining room,
busy with several young Americans over desks and typewriters.

"Inspector," he said, as a tall and slender yet muscular man of Indian
erectness and noticeably careful grooming rose to his feet, "Here's one
of those rare people, an American who speaks some foreign languages.
Have a talk with him. Perhaps we can arrange to fix him up both for his
good and our own."

"Ever done police duty?" began the Inspector, when "the Captain" had
returned to the corner office.

"No."

"Military ser--"

"Nor that either."

"Well, we usually require it," mused the Inspector slowly, flashing his
diamond ring, "but with your special qualifications perhaps--

"You'd probably be of most use to us in plain clothes," he continued,
after a dozen questions as to my former activities; "We could put you
in uniform for the first month or six weeks until you know the Isthmus,
and then--

"Our greatest trouble is burglary," he broke off abruptly, rising to
reach a copy of the "Canal Zone Laws"; "If you have nothing else on
hand you might run these over; and the 'Police Rules and Regulations,'"
he added, handing me a small, flat volume bound in light brown
imitation leather.

I sat down in an arm-chair against the wall and fell to reading, amid
the clickity-click of typewriters, telephone calls even from far-off
Colon on the Atlantic, and the constant going and coming of a <DW64>
orderly in shiningly ironed khaki uniform. By and by the Inspector
drifted into the main office, where his voice blended for some time
with that of "the Captain," At length he came back bearing a copy of
the day's Star and Herald, turned back to the "Estrella de Panama"
pages so rarely opened in the Zone.

"Just run us off a translation of that, if you don't mind," he said,
pointing to