Suddenly the square emptied before an onrushing company of white laborers, led by a stout, bull-bodied man, heading for the little group of Senegalese. The group of Senegalese broke up and scattered, leaving two of their number knocked down, and one of the white attackers who had caught a clout in the head. At that moment, Bugsy and Dengel, coming from the docks, appeared at the southwest corner of the square, just as one of the blacks was felled.
“He‑ey! You see that theah! You see that!” Bugsy cried, and to his amazement the big white man, followed by his gang, came charging toward him. Militant by nature and always ready to defend himself, Bugsy exclaimed: “Hey—hey! Now what they coming to mess with me for?” And he stood his ground, on guard. But when he saw the whole gang coming unswervingly down upon him, he wavered, backed a few steps, then turned and ran nimbly like a rat up one of the dark alleys.
Dengel was soft with the wine of the docks and, comprehending nothing of what was in the air, stood swaying in his tracks where he was struck a vicious blow in the face that felled him.
As suddenly as it had commenced, the onslaught was ended. Bugsy and Dengel went to the African café where some of the Senegalese had gathered. Banjo and Ray also went there. They had seen the eruption from a café in the square.
Dengel’s nose was bleeding badly.
“It’s sure counta you always getting in a fight that Dengel he got hit,” said Banjo to Bugsy.
“Me! It wasn’t no fault a mine. What was I to do, pardner?”
“Jest keep you’ mouth shut and do what you done did at the critical moment—run! What else was there to do when the whole damn ditch a white mens is after one nigger?”
“If them Senegalese had done stand up to it—” Bugsy began.
“They tried to, but what could five men do against an army?”
“But Gawd in heab’n!” exclaimed Bugsy. “I almost got like feeling I was in Dixie with the fire under mah tail.”
“H’m. If it was in Dixie, you wouldn’t be sitting there now, blowing a whole lot a nonsense off’n you’ liver lips.”
Ray was talking to the proprietor of the bar and a Senegalese, who was explaining that the trouble arose out of differences between the Italian dock workers and the Senegalese. There was much jealousy between the rival groups and the Senegalese aggressively reminded the Italians that they were French and possessed the rights of citizens.
“There is no difference between Italians and Frenchmen,” said the barkeeper. “They are all the same white and prejudiced against black skin.”
“C’est pas vrai, pas vrai,” a tall Senegalese seaman jumped to his feet. “Ça n’existe pas en France.”
“It exists, it exists all right,” insisted the patron. He was small and eager and wore glasses and a melancholy aspect. “France is no better than America. In fact, America is better every time for a colored man.”
Upon that a clamorous dispute broke out in Senegalese and French, interspersed with scraps of English. Ray sat back, swallowing all of it that he could understand. The proprietor was a fervid apostle of Americanism and he warmed up to defend his position. He praised American industry, business, houses, theaters, popular music, and progress and opportunity for everybody—even Negroes. He said the Negroes knew how they stood among the Americans, but the French were hypocrites. They had a whole lot of say, which had nothing to do with reality.
At this the Senegalese seaman bellowed another protest, punctuated with swearing merde on the Anglo-Saxons and all those who liked their civilization, and the proprietor invited him to leave his café if he could not be polite to him. The seaman told the proprietor that even though he had been to the United States and made money enough to return to Marseilles and buy a bar, he should not forget that he was only a common blackamoor of the Dakar streets, while he (the seaman) was a fils des nobles, belonging to an old aristocratic Senegambian family. The proprietor retorted that there was nothing left to the African nobility but “bull.” Ask Europe about that, especially France, which was the biggest white hog in Africa.
The Senegalese started again, as if he had been pinched behind, to the defense of the protectress of his country. But the proprietor brought down La Race Nègre on him. This was a journal for the “Defense de la race Nègre,” published by a group of French West Africans in Paris. The journal was displayed conspicuously for sale in the café, although some colored visitors had told the proprietor they did not think it was good for his business to sell it there.
But the proprietor had a willful way. He was rather piqued that the café was not doing so well since the first opening days. Before he bought it the clients were all white, and now no whites went there except the broken-down girls of the Ditch. He remarked white people peeping in at the door and not entering when they saw the black boys. The handful of well-dressed Senegalese who went there said they were sure the whites did not enter not because of prejudice, but because the black boys lounging all over the café were dirty, ragged, and smelly. The proprietor stressed his feeling that it was all a matter of prejudice. White people, no matter of what nation, did not want to see colored people prosper.
Also, the proprietor was intransigent about La
