The Mercenaries (40 page)

As the Ford came to a stop, another car with three men in it appeared from the opposite end of the field and headed towards them. To Ira’s surprise it was Lao who stepped out. He was no longer in uniform and he looked strained and tired.

‘Lao! How the devil did you get here?’

Lao managed one of his stiff smiles. ‘They think I have thrown in my lot with Chiang,’ he said. He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Perhaps I will when this is over.’

‘Where’s Tsu?’

‘He’s at Tsosiehn with his wife and the boy. They’re being hunted.’

It was on the tip of Ira’s tongue to say they were beyond help when something in Lao’s face warned him the visit wasn’t simply to exchange news.

‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Why have you come to me?’

Lao paused. ‘I want you to fly to Yaochow and fetch them out,’ he said. ‘You’ll be paid well.’ He turned to the car and dragged out a wooden box. As he unlocked it and tipped it over, a shower of silver fell about their boots.

‘Mexican dollars,’ he said. ‘You can count them if you wish. The General also has his personal fortune with him at Tsosiehn. You can name your own figure when you’ve picked him up.’

For a moment there was silence as Ira glanced at the others. Sammy’s eyes were gleaming, but Ellie’s face was hard and expressionless, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

Sammy pushed forward. His arm was improving a little now and a lot of the pain had gone and he was feverish with eagerness to get to work. He said nothing but it was obvious what he was thinking.

Ira took a deep breath. ‘Sammy, we ought to,’ he said slowly. ‘We need the money. Building the D.H. and coming here’s cleared us out. We can do it and, if we aren’t sticking our heads into a noose, we ought to do it.’

Sammy nodded eagerly and Ira glanced at Ellie. There was misery in her face, a tight hard core of unhappiness that made the muscles along her jawline move and knotted her fingers into fists at her side. He knew what she was thinking yet he knew also that all that he’d told Sammy was correct. This was the opportunity they’d been waiting for, the one thing that could give them stability and consolidate their company. But still he hesitated.

‘Why can’t the General go by river?’ he asked.

Lao shrugged. ‘Chiang’s men are searching all ships. Only you can get him out.’

Ira knew that Sammy was in complete agreement with him, yet he still felt the need to justify himself. ‘We’re air carriers, Sammy,’ he said. ‘What do we exist for but this?’

‘It’s a risk, Ira. We’re chancing everything we’ve got.’

They had both made up their minds and they were merely arguing their thoughts aloud. Ira turned to Lao.

‘Is it safe?’ he asked.

‘There will be men at Yaochow to meet you, Trusted men.’

’Nuts!’ Ellie spoke for the first time. ‘There
aren’t
any trusted men anywhere in China these days. They’re all changing sides so goddam fast, it dazzles you.’

‘
These
are trusted men. Kee’s one of them. There will be only the General and his money boxes, and Madame Tsu and the boy.’

‘What’s the price?’ Ira asked.

‘There is no limit.’

‘What about the return trip? What about petrol?’

‘I have arranged all this. There are men with petrol at Yaochow and en route both ways at Shincheh and Liaochang.’

‘Four thousand American dollars,’ Sammy suggested, wildly optimistic.

To Ira’s surprise, Lao nodded at once. ‘Let’s say five,’ he suggested. Then there will be no backing out. There are two thousand in the box. Three more when you arrive with General Tsu.’

‘How shall we know the airfield’s safe?’ Ira demanded.

‘There will be a yellow flag flying and a fire burning to give you wind direction. If there is no flag and no fire, then it will be too late. We have only a day or two.’

There was a long silence, then Ellie spoke.

‘Say “yes”, Ira,’ she said quietly.

It was so unexpected, both Sammy and Ira swung round, startled. She was breathing quickly, standing stiffly upright, her hands rigid at her side.

‘There’s a woman and a child waiting,’ she went on in a low breathless voice. ‘And I’ve been in this goddam country long enough to know what they’re thinking.’

There was a great sense of relief in Ira. Although Ellie had reached the same conclusion that he had by a different route, she’d still reached it, and he’d never expected her to.

He turned to Lao. ‘What’ll happen to them if they’re found?’

Lao managed a twisted smile. ‘Kwei has always sworn to kill General Tsu. He won’t die quickly.’

‘What about the others?’

‘At Tsosiehn there are no longer European gunboats to make sure there is fair play and that European ideas of gallantry are observed.’

Ellie’s throat worked as she swallowed with difficulty, and the stark look of misery that they’d seen on the raft came back into her eyes. ‘It’s got to be done, Ira,’ she said.

For a long time, Ira gazed at her, wondering how her mind was working. She had long been disenchanted with flying and he knew that more than anything else she’d prefer to turn her back on aeroplanes for the rest of her life. But she’d clearly made up her mind now, and was looking at him with bright, hard, challenging eyes as though she’d no intention of changing it again.

‘You sure you know what you’re saying, Ellie?’ he asked quietly.

Her head moved in a quick jerk. ‘Sure I know,’ she said in the same breathless voice. ‘But, for God’s sake, don’t ask me why I know.’

Sammy studied her for a moment then he turned to Ira and nodded.

‘Right,’ Ira said. ‘I’ll go.’

‘It will require both planes,’ Lao pointed out. ‘It cannot be done in two trips.’

Ira was looking at Peter Cheng when Ellie spoke. ‘I’ll go, too,’ she said. ‘I’ve more experience than anybody except you. Sammy can’t, that’s clear, and with the mob out in Tsosiehn, we sure as hell can’t ask a Chinese to put down there.’

In their eagerness, they had overlooked this point and what she said made sense. But Ira knew it wasn’t this alone that had persuaded her, and as he tried to make up his mind, she caught his eyes on her and turned her head away, her calmness crumbling momentarily into uncertainty.

‘Stop looking at me,’ she said in a low fierce voice.

Sammy was watching her, holding his breath as though he, if no one else, was able to divine what she was thinking.

‘Ellie, don’t,’ he said in a low voice.

She shook her head, as though to force their eyes away. ‘Lay off me,’ she said. ‘I’m going!‘

Ira’s mouth was dry but there was colour in her cheeks as she lifted her head again, gaining control of herself and staring back at him.

‘I’m thinking of Madame Tsu and the boy,’ she said. ‘If they cut Tsu into a thousand pieces, it wouldn’t matter to me.’

In spite of her calmness, there was a lost look behind her eyes that frightened him, an angry fatalism, an acceptance of whatever the future might hold.

She lit a cigarette quickly as he watched her, then she glanced up at him briefly, and nodded her head. ‘Go ahead,’ she urged. ‘I’m sure.’

Ira caught Sammy’s eyes and saw they were worried, too, but clearly there was no arguing with her. He began to do hurried sums in his head.

‘We should arrive at Tsosiehn just before dark,’ he said. ‘We could leave the day after at first light.’

He glanced again at Ellie but she didn’t even meet his eyes and turned away to drag her leather helmet and flying jacket from her valise. She’d worn neither of them for weeks now and they were at the bottom of all her belongings on the lorry, but she tossed them across one of the crates and stood waiting silently.

For a moment longer Ira hesitated, but she showed no sign of backing out, and he turned towards the De Havilland.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

There was a British naval guardpost in the Tsosiehn Road, built of sandbags and barbed wire and manned by British sailors, with Sikh policemen standing behind. In front of it the narrow flagstoned street was noisy with students. They seemed to be mere children, but behind them, carrying bamboo staves, were throngs of howling coolies and, as the lorry-passed, the mob became threatening. Whistles shrilled at once and the sailors fixed bayonets and moved forward, and immediately the crowd became hundreds of individual coolies darting down alleys that were knee-deep in rubbish and torn paper. The steamer’s bridge was piled with armour and its decks were jammed with missionaries, their faces bruised, their children screaming with fright. Trunks and cases and even furniture were stacked around the deckhouses, but Sammy bullied and argued his way aboard with their crates of spares, the Chengs and the Wangs, turning fiercely on the officer who wanted to refuse them passage and jamming their belongings with other bales and boxes along the rail as a protection against bullets.

‘Why don’t the politicians at home do something?’ A woman with grey straggling hair and a red blotched face spat at Ira as he went down the gangplank. ‘We’ve lost everything and they’re torturing people in Hupeh.’ She looked like a coolie’s wife with her plain face full of bitterness, her shabby padded Chinese clothes and her grimy hands.

The gunboat from Tsosiehn which was to escort them down-stream was already under way, its decks as crowded as the steamer’s, its smoke stack full of bullet-holes and patches, its bridge wadded with sandbags. The steamer’s siren let off a long blast.

‘
Ding hao
, Sammy,’ Ira shouted from the shore. ‘We’ll be waiting on the bund at Pootung when you arrive.’

Sammy waved. ‘Keep ‘em flying, Ira!‘

They drove back to the airfield through lines of pickets who tried to stop them, and the only answer was to put the vehicles into top gear and move as fast as possible so that the line crumbled and drew back, throwing melon rinds, rocks and filth as they passed.

The field looked desolate when they returned and the sawmill nearby was silent, the big log raft on which they had journeyed with such difficulty from Tsosiehn not long before lying in a backwater, still not dismantled but empty of people, student banners flying from the reed huts. Lao appeared from behind the two aircraft and they punctured the petrol tanks of the car and the lorry and tossed a match on to the spilled petrol.

It was heartbreaking to destroy their own possessions like this, but Lao didn’t want them and in Ira’s bitter mood he felt he’d rather see them burned than turned over to the mob that had ruined him. With hard unforgiving eyes he watched the burning vehicles which not very long before they’d laboured so hard to save, then he turned to Ellie waiting by the De Havilland.

He had lain awake most of the night, trying to decide what was in her mind. She had refused to tell him, huddled silently in his arms, making love with a quiet tenderness that worried him in spite of its gentleness. But she had refused to discuss her decision and he had been obliged to accept it in the end without knowing what was behind it.

Her eyes were as sombre as his own as she looked at him, waiting his decisions.

‘You take the Avro, Ellie,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s safe and her engine’s as sweet as a nut. I’ll take off first and, when we arrive. I’ll land first in case there’s trouble.’

She managed a smile and turned away. Her face set, she climbed into the Avro, fastening her leather coat and harness and pulling her helmet down over her hair.

For a moment, Ira stood by the wing, trying to read her thoughts, then she turned, smiling--a sweet smile suddenly, as though she’d been purged of all fears and anxieties.

‘Contact, Ira.’

As he heaved on the propeller, the Mono came into crackling life, blue flames and smoke jetting from beneath the cowling. Tossing the chocks into the rear cockpit, he leaned his weight against the quivering wing tip and helped her turn into wind, then, giving careful instructions to Lao and his men, he climbed into the De Havilland. The engine missed at first, but at the third heave, the Liberty burst into a metallic howl and the machine began to thrust against the chocks. At Ira’s signal, Lao’s men pulled them away and threw them aboard, and as the machine jolted forward, the Avro began to rumble in pursuit through the smoke of the burning vehicles.

8

They passed over Tsosiehn just as dusk was approaching. It seemed empty apart from a few scattered lights, and the Chang-an-Chieh Pagoda seemed deserted. There were chunks of ice along the bund but the river seemed empty of vessels apart from a burnt-out steamer lying where it had been run ashore.

They swept over the pagoda and the cemetery where they’d buried Fagan and Tsai, losing height rapidly as they headed towards Yaochow, and Ira glanced round to see the Avro about a hundred yards behind and to the right. He waved, then signalled with his hand and pointed downwards, and he saw Ellie’s arm go up in reply. Throttling back, he began to circle for the landing and, as he sank lower, he could see a long stream of smoke rising from the misty purple of the field towards the east, and a yellow flag flapping from the post where they’d always hung the windsock.

He came in over the edge of the perimeter, half-frozen with the cold, his cheeks dead and white below his goggles. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Avro circling behind him, then the next moment, his wheels were bumping on the uneven surface of the field. As the De Havilland rolled to a stop, he kept the engine ticking over, his eyes flickering about him, waiting for the rush of armed men that would force him to take off again. So far, Lao had been as good as his word and at Shincheh and Liaochang they had renewed their acquaintance with grinning pupil pilots who had been entrusted with the refuelling.

The sun had gone down and already the stubble was grey with frost-rime. The burned-out Peugeot and the Fokker still stood together near the farmhouse where they’d abandoned them, but the Peugeot had lost its wheels and its tonneau had been stripped. The farmhouse door hung open just as they’d left it, and he could see scattered rusty tins among the skid marks and the scorched grass where the petrol dump had gone up, fringed with blackened fragments of metal. Yaochow seemed a place of weeping, inhabited by ghosts, and it gave him an odd unnerving feeling that he ought never to have come back.