The Blue-Eyed Shan (36 page)

General Yang was not doing what he did best. He was miserable in the knowledge that he had failed them all, friend and foe alike, and principally himself. Some miscalculation years ago. He stood between his footlockers in the House of the Dead and could not decide which path to take. He heard commotion, shots and shouts. Was he to wait here for the boy Jum-aw? Should he abandon the bones and seek out his own men? Look for Greenwood? Join the women and children? Why was he here?

He discovered why he was there when the first Wild Wa erupted from the forest and darted up toward the Common Field. Others veered toward him; dimly he recognized them, dwarfish specters; they scampered closer. He heard a wail go up from the Common Field, and rifle fire. He heard the boom of a hand grenade.

He took up his carbine, snapped the safety off and knelt in his wall that was no wall, knelt in the unshelter of the House of the Dead, and pumped shots into the crowd of small charging tribesmen. Some ran past him. Some fell. One slipped toward him from the side. They were all but naked, smeared with grime, and when General Yang's clip was empty and he paused to ram home another, these savages gave meaning to his life. He stood almost exultant. It is easier to die hard.

Fifty years. Fifty years of Latin and socialism, tactics and romance, Confucious and Darwin. Fifty years of short rations, mud, insults, carnage, and now these pygmies, these cannibals, these horrors from the center of the earth—Yang stood squarely before his footlockers and swung his carbine by the barrel. There was no time for a fresh clip, but there was, really, all the time in the world, the whole rest of his life, time to meet the flat alien gaze of one dark stunted man, time to puzzle at the operation of the curious crossbow and to admire the man's courage, time to remember another crossbow clutched by the bloody mutilated corpse of a Boxer on the ramparts half a century before in Peking, time to wonder that he had not learned the truth earlier—the truth that his enemy, his barbarian enemy, was not the Japanese or the Communist or the Other but the primitive, the mindless, the fanatic, the slaver without equitable law, even-handed justice, conscientious science and painstaking art, without decency and mutuality and, yes, fraternity, liberté egalité fraternité—

All that neatly summarized in the unspoken words “On est bien dans la merde” while this warlock from a nightmare leveled the crossbow and, eyes flashing, teeth happily bared, sent a bolt through his heart. Yang Yu-lin felt a smashing blow, a minor pain, saw his enemy through a pink haze, glimpsed a chalet; the red shutters flew open and Florence beckoned to him as his heart broke a second time.

Jum-aw owned four clips of five shots each and a leather bag of individual cartridges. He was a hunter, so shot sparingly; even so, in the first minutes he enjoyed himself and wiped out the shame of his and Green Wood's encounter with the bandits. He was sure that he had killed two of the Wild Wa and he began to feel heroic. This was a holding action; he was waiting for the Shan to return and help him. He heard firing to the east and decided that the Shan had joined battle with another force of Wild Wa. He rammed home another clip, aimed and fired. Chung's daughters, behind him, exclaimed.

Olevskoy and his men had spent two or three wars perfecting rearguard actions. As they struggled into Red Bullock Pass they kept the Shan at bay, leapfrogging men and machine guns along the trail and sweeping both flanks with heavy fire. The hillsides above were fatal, and they took losses. They killed but took more losses. They abandoned a machine gun. They could not disengage. Behind them were some Shan and then possibly the Wild Wa. There was no going back. But there was no going forward either.

Major Ho was almost merry. He had no choice! There was nothing to decide!

He fired, and bellowed like a bull, still alive, still alive, and fired again.

Naung made one irresolute effort to break through the Chinese lines from the east, but quickly disengaged. No Wild Wa had been flushed, and the Chinese were firing in all directions. The machine guns were murderous. “We cannot force the pass,” he shouted. “Over the ridge and be quick!” He left a squad to seal off the pass, sent Taw-bi alone to the Roost to watch the road, and then he ran, ran until his chest hurt, toward the Common Field and Loi-mae and Lola.

The Wild Wa kept up a steady slow fire, advancing from the House of the Dead toward the Common Field. Their bolts were fashioned of hard metals smelted from crude ore or acquired by barter; there was not always time to recover them; and as they were heavy, ammunition was limited. They had scarcely more old cartridges than old rifles. At hand-to-hand work their curved knives—the long ones, almost swords—were deadly, sharper than blades of tiger grass, and sharp on both edges.

They darted toward the Common Field in relays, a line to fire while another line advanced, the second line then pausing to fire while the first line advanced.

The women and children of Pawlu, with the boy Jum-aw and the toothless home guard of ancients, stood their ground. The livestock were out of control and plunging against their tethers. Half the beasts had fled. Cha and Ang-ang were releasing the others; this would be no siege, requiring supplies, but a sharp battle quickly over. Loi-mae prayed for Lola. Chung prayed for Mong. Jum-aw took his time, a veteran now, and dealt death to his cousins the Wild Wa. “We shall survive,” Za-kho chanted to his people. “It is the last lakh of years and we Shan shall endure to the end.” The old men flashed out the first rank, and seemed to lose their years; if die they must, the would die like Shan, and not like flies in autumn.

Once more the Wild Wa paused, knelt, and loosed a volley of bolts and bullets. A random bolt tore through Loi-mae's cheek, ripping away half her mouth and breaking the opposite cheekbone; she shrieked and choked on her blood, and Chung ministered to her. Lola screamed and clutched at her dagger. Where were the men? Where was Green Wood, where was Naung? Perhaps Naung had been killed! Perhaps they were all to be killed! Her tears gushed, but she turned to face the onslaught. She drew her dagger. Why, these savages were hardly taller than she!

Olevskoy raced in from the pass, spurring his pony ruthlessly, flying along the fringes of the massed villagers, who could not know whether he was friend or enemy. His men were dying. He had not seen Major Ho for some time; how much time, he could not tell; in a battle time sped, slowed, lost meaning. “The general!” he cried. “Where is the general?” One of these dolts must speak Chinese. He reined in hard before an old man with an older rifle. The man shrank away. With two fingers Olevskoy gave himself slanted eyes, and parodied a clown's grin. The Shan understood, and for an insane moment cackled laughter; he gestured. The insanity was contagious; Olevskoy said, “Thank you,” as he wheeled to gallop off.

He saw small naked savages at the far end of the Common Field. So these were the Wild Wa! He ignored them. He skirted the Common Field and dashed south to the House of the Dead. He hauled his pony to a racking halt, sprang to earth and strode through the open wall. He did not see General Yang immediately. He saw two footlockers. He then saw a body lying between them. He recognized Yang's uniform and knelt. Yang was dead; the famous grin was frozen. “So he had time to smile,” Olevskoy said. “I liked him after all.” A stab of grief perplexed him.

He saw the keys on the necklace. He set down his carbine and tugged the necklace over the general's head. The bloody keys were slick, and the locks opened obligingly. Olevskoy tore open boxes, tore away wrappings.

He saw a few bones. One was a skull. One was an obvious leg bone.

His grief soured, and became confused dismay. “In the name of God the Father,” he cried in Russian, “ancestor worship!”

He fled. He sprang back upon his pony and headed for the people of Pawlu.

The Wild Wa were at their last gasp now, least effective in an open field, their supply of bolts dwindling, their dead warning them. They had approached the edge of the stubborn mass and made random carnage, chiefly maiming women, but their momentum was spent and it was time to melt away. When the Shan were distracted by a Chinese irruption across the field, Thuan-yi gave the leopard's cry, and paused to see his men disengage, and escape southward. It was then that a girl, not yet a woman, picked up a dah almost as long as she was tall and hurled herself toward him.

Thuan-yi took time for a laugh, admiring this little one, and darted toward her, drawing his long knife from his breechclout. He saw her eyes grow huge with fear, yet she raised the dah. Again he admired her. With his long knife he chopped at the dah, and sent it spinning. Still laughing, he rushed at her, grasped her by the waist and slung her over his shoulder. He whirled to dash for the cover of the little open house where the Chinese lay dead; and when he saw the albino racing toward him, the albino who was not a Shan, he too felt a flash of terror.

Olevskoy scorned these animals; if they could kill him, then life was of little value. But he saw one of them disarm the girl, and recognized her, that very face, saw him disarm her and fling her high. He had no choice, and said in Russian, “Even the devil grows old. Imagine doing something
good
.”

Thuan-yi let the girl fall and scuttled away, string bag swishing against his thigh. The albino thundered past, toward the girl, and Thuan-yi offered thanks. Many of his friends had died today; he had seen them die. But he would not die. He was happy. He sprinted toward the little open house. There were rites to be observed; there was a purpose to this day.

Olevskoy let the Wild Wa scoot away, and swooped down on the girl, plucking her from the turf with the zest of a circus Cossack snatching a kerchief from the grass. He dumped her across the pony's withers. A hand tugged hard at his sleeve, a hand not hers. He saw that a spent bolt had torn the khaki and still dangled. Olevskoy's luck: not a scratch. These little buggers were still firing, were they! He reined in, momentarily uncertain. The crackle of gunfire decided him, and he wasted no more time, but bore off to the south. When he was away from the village he angled sharply east, toward the avenue to freedom, Siam, the luxuries that life had always owed him, cities, servants, polo, champagne—all at the end of that dusty road on the China-Burma border. The girl was in shock, or unconscious.

Naung and his men came down from the north inside the pass, Kin-tan and his men came up from the south, all scrambling down the hillsides like goats, and caught the Chinese well in time, from both flanks. The Chinese, who had believed since the first shot that they were the victims of a ruse, a betrayal, expected no quarter and fought back hard and snarling. Beside Wan a running Kin-tan fell as old Phe-win had fallen; the earth seemed to tremble. Wan cried out in bitter sorrow. Sergeant Chang died at his machine gun, struck by half a ten of slugs in half a ten of seconds. No one cried out in bitter sorrow. Chinese lay strewn from Red Bullock Pass to the Common Field. Shan too. No one ever knew whether a Chinese or two had escaped, fleeing into the forest, crawling north, holing up and moving on.

The Shan forced the main body of Chinese back into the pass, where more Shan waited. A few Chinese actually reached the Common Field and were killed by the women and the old men. Za-kho had steeled himself but was not required to kill; women and children did it for him. Jum-aw killed anyone not a Shan, toward the end; he lost count, but when it was over, had four cartridges left for some thirty-five.

Greenwood too had killed Chinese soldiers. He had not wanted to do that. One of his best friends was a Chinese soldier. He was now seeing double. He was not soldiering properly. His left arm gave him great pain. He was staggering through the forest and his submachine gun would present problems. It could not be controlled with one hand. The muzzle bucked immediately and higher throughout the burst. He recalled with joyous nostalgia the old British drum magazines. With those the gun bucked not only upward but sharply to the right. The box magazine was a distinct improvement.

He heard a drum roll of gunfire. The British Sten gun bucked so high so quickly that a soldier had to lay the left hand on the barrel and push down hard while firing. This technical information made him happier. It was specific. The mind could grasp it.

He halted, and concentrated. He had been injured. He had banged his head, or something had gouged it; his fingers came away bloody. He was confused but not so confused that he did not know that he was confused. That struck him funny.

An abrupt flood of good cheer eased his pain. He had been wounded. And some residual illusion, some soldier's false optimism, told him that in battle men were wounded or killed but not both.

Thaun-yi had retreated from Olevskoy and called two of his lingering men to join him. They had converged on the deserted House of the Dead and briskly detached Yang Yu-lin's head, which they dropped into Thuan-yi's string bag. They then inspected the footlockers.

At the sight of the bones they paused, and knew awe. Thuan-yi poked at the skull with one finger. The heavens did not fall. Working quickly, they made a heap of the larger bones. Thuan-yi unknotted his black loincloth and stood naked. They wrapped these larger bones in the loincloth. The oldest of them, tired after this day's work, then gathered up the cloth and loped off toward the forest and home. In a string bag slung over his shoulder, two heads bobbed against his haunch. Thuan-yi saw that one of them seemed to be smiling broadly, and impishly he returned the grin.

The battle ebbed and ended. Corpses lay like fallen game; there were dead men in the brush, paddy, tobacco and leafy lanes. Most wore Chinese uniforms. Just west of Red Bullock Pass, Naung found a heap of sticks that had been Mong. He bore the body back to the Common Field. Among the wailing villagers, among the milling survivors, stupefied children, groaning old women, now placid livestock, Chung had been tending Loi-mae. The bolt had torn away several teeth and propelled the cheekbone upward, so that Loi-mae's left eye protruded. Chung had been stanching the flow of blood from the torn cheek and teasing the cheekbone down; slowly the eye resumed its proper place. Chung asked, “Can you see?” but Loi-mae was unconscious. Chung's eldest daughter wailed. “Be quiet,” Chung told her, but then all her daughters wailed, and she knew.