Zone Policeman 88; a close range study of the Panama canal and its workers
- Pages
- about 218
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
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.
"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.
"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.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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