Synopsis for
The Sand Pebbles (1966) More at IMDbPro »

For troubled hero Jake Holman (Steve "Lightning" McQueen), no good deed goes unpunished.

Transferred in 1926 to the U.S.S. San Pablo (whose crew is nicknamed the "Sand Pebbles"), a gunboat serving on the Yangtze River Patrol in China, engineer Holman finds that Chinese coolies are actually doing most of the work on the ship. When he insists on working on the ship's engines himself, he earns the enmity of the Chinese "boss" of the engine room. Captain Collins (Richard Crenna) dismisses Holman's warnings that the machinery needs significant maintenance, and when the ship experiences inevitable engine troubles, the engine room boss is crushed to death by a giant piston when Holman lets him attempt the repair. The head coolie boss bitterly blames Holman for the accident.

Told to train a replacement for the dead man, Holman chooses Po-Han (Mako), whom he also befriends, overcoming his bigoted assumptions about the intellectual abilities of the Chinese. Holman sticks up for Po-Han against a bully, and sets him up to win in a prize fight against his tormentor. Shipmate Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) uses the money to pay for the freedom of a young Chinese woman, Maily (Emmanuelle Arsan), saving her from a life of prostitution. Po-Han is later captured and tortured by a Communist mob because he works for the Americans. Unable to save his friend, Holman shoots Po-Han to end his suffering. This further enrages the Communists, and the captain rebukes Holman for disobeying orders.

Frenchy eventually marries Maily in a makeshift ceremony witnessed by Holman and his love interest, Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen), an American teacher at the China Light Mission. When increasing tensions with the Chinese force the Americans to spend all winter on board under siege, Frenchy slips overboard and swims to shore to visit Maily. Made desperately ill by exposure to the cold water, Frenchy ignores Maily's pleas to return for medical care. Holman, permitted to go ashore to deliver the ship's mail, visits them, but finds that Frenchy has died the night before. Anti-American nationalists kill Maily and her unborn child, and frame Holman for the murder. He makes it back to the ship where his fellow sailors come close to mutiny when the Captain refuses to hand over Holman to the Chinese for prosecution.

Just as spring arrives, bringing a rise in the river water levels and the opportunity to escape the siege, news reaches the San Pablo that revolutionaries have begun open violence against Americans in Nanking. The captain ignores orders to attempt to rescue the Americans at China Light -- Shirley and the idealistic missionary Jameson (Larry Gates). To reach the mission, the gunboat must break through a blockade of junks manned by the very boys educated at the missionary school, including the student leader who had been protecting Jameson. The captain and a few men, including Holman, reach the nearly abandoned mission compound to find Jameson and Shirley reluctant to leave. But the Communists attack, killing Jameson. When the captain is killed attempting to provide cover for the others to escape, Holman takes his place, remaining behind while the other sailors slip away with Shirley to freedom. Holman nearly escapes, too, before he is shot. His dying words are, "I was home. What happened? What the hell happened?"