The Mercenaries

by John Harris

  ‘I shouldn’t bother,’ Sammy soothed. ‘Not now. You need a spot of shut-eye.’

  Ira stared at the half-empty gin bottle, and Sammy laughed. ‘I’ll leave you to finish the rest of it,’ he said, ‘and go and see what I can do about the Fokker.’

  As he rose to his feet, they heard the sound of a car engine over the putt-putt of the generator, and the thump of doors banging in the darkness outside. It was Lao.

  ‘The General is very pleased,’ he said.

  ‘So he bloody well should be,’ Sammy snorted. Three of ‘em. In one go.’

  Lao’s eyes widened. ‘Three?’

  ‘You can go and count ‘em if you like,’ Ira said. ‘They’re all on this side of the lines near Hakau. General Kwei hasn’t got an air force any more, so you can tell General Tsu he can gallop from here to Canton now without being worried.’

  Lao looked startled, then be began to beam. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘You can tell him, too, that there’ll be a report coming along and a bloody great demand for money. We stuck to our side of the contract. He sticks to his.’

  As Lao left, Ellie appeared in the doorway with a chipped enamel jug of black coffee, aromatic with rum.

  She waited outside for Sammy to emerge, her eyes gentle and concerned and questioning.

  ‘He’s jiggered,’ Sammy said softly.

  ‘Perhaps the coffee’ll help.’ Sammy stared at her, wisdom in his eyes beyond his years. ‘It ain’t coffee he wants,’ he said.

  She stared back at him. ‘I’ll stay with him, Sammy.’

  Sammy nodded and closed the door behind her. As he became aware of her near the table, Ira looked up. His movements were sluggish with weariness and his eyes red-rimmed with the wind, but he managed a twisted smile.

  ‘It’s been quite a fortnight,’ he said.

  She poured out a mug of coffee and handed it to him without replying. He took it gratefully.

  “That’s better,’ he said. He looked up at her. ‘I ought to be elated, Ellie. If Tsu pays up, we’re in the money. And we can take it easy, too, now. We ought to be going out on a damn great booze-up just like we used to. But somehow, here, it’s different. Those men I killed didn’t mean a damn thing to me. They were doing it for money like I was.’

  He drew his hand across his face, realising how tired he was. The last two weeks had been exhausting. He had flown several patrols a day, culminating in the racking drama of the afternoon, and it seemed as if the backbone had been drawn out of him.

  ‘I could sleep for a week,’ he said.

  ‘Why not try?’

  He nodded and as Ellie lifted his feet to the bed, he lay back with a groan.

  He looked up. ‘What happens now, Ellie?’ he said. “Tsu’s air force’s lost its reason for existing. What happens to us?’

  ‘We’ll think about that tomorrow.’

  His mind was still occupied by the dozens of niggling responsibilities. ‘How many more of the pupils are going to go solo, Ellie?’

  ‘One. Perhaps two. No more. Maybe they just haven’t got what it takes.’

  She pushed him down on the blankets and leaned over him. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said.

  His grin was crooked and exhausted as he looked up at her. ‘How about a goodnight kiss, Ellie?’

  She gazed at him for a second, then she bent and her lips brushed his.

  As she straightened up, Ira’s voice was strained. ‘I hate my bloody self,’ he said harshly. ‘Four men in half an hour. As easy as falling off a log.’

  She passed a hand over his forehead, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

  ‘Pat was wrong, you know, Ira,’ she said gently. ‘There is no sport in it.’

  ‘Dying’s never a sport.’

  She bent over him to drag the leather jacket free. Since she’d been to Shanghai the strain had gone out of her face again.

  ‘Ellie,’ he said gently, ‘you’re beautiful.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘Not that drunk.’

  As she pulled the coat from under him at last, his other arm came up round her and pulled her down to him. For a second they stayed together, their faces only an inch or two apart, then his hand slipped underneath her shirt, above the khaki trousers she wore, and he felt the warm skin in the hollow of her back and the sudden quivering tension of her body.

  She shuddered in a spasm of pain and there were unexpected tears on his cheek, then she was moaning softly, her face hidden in the curve of his neck, her fingers digging into his muscles.

  ‘Oh, Ira, Ira! Thank God you’re safe! ‘

  At her cry, Ira was immediately alert and sobered, and his arm tightened gently round her, holding her to him until the shaking stopped. As she allowed herself to relax, he could hear her crying weakly, and for a second he lay motionless, his arm firmly round her quivering frame. Then, moving on the bed, he allowed her to slip down and crouch against him, still sobbing weakly, and reached up and silently pulled the leather coat over her.

  Part Four

  1

  The first cool wind was blowing from the mountains to the north, and though the day was clear, a nagging breeze that was noticeably colder came across the field, rattling the ropes of the marquees and billowing the panels. The wings of the Farman lifted and sagged as it snatched at them, and Wang appeared for the first time wearing a quilted coat.

  Towards midday, Lao’s car came down the dirt road, drab against a grey sky, dragging a plume of yellow dust after it, and rattled and banged across the field to where Sammy was working over the wrecked Fokker with chilled fingers. With him, Lao had Kee, a suitcase full of Shanghai dollars, and Peking medals for Ira, Sammy and Cheng.

  He looked pleased with himself. With Kwei’s air force gone and no fear of danger from aeroplanes, Tsu’s troops were on the march east already. Kwei had expected a great deal from his brand-new Russian-supplied air force and, his nerve broken by his losses, his troops constantly harried from the sky, he backed away so fast his vaunted artillery was left behind and lost and, as his troops vanished into the wooded area towards Hwai-Yang, there was no longer any need for flying. With Tsu’s grip on Tsosiehn immediately firmer, all the parades had stopped overnight and the students had suddenly discovered the importance of examinations. The flags and the placards had disappeared and the mob had become earnest-faced coolies again, going about their business in their blue cotton rags and conical straw hats with no sign of disaffection.

  ‘Everything is going our way,’ Lao said gaily. The Warlord of the South-West is gaining followers every day. Even Chiang K’ai-Shek will not be able to withstand him now.’

  Ira glanced at Sammy. They all knew Lao was seeing things through rose-tinted spectacles because, whatever was happening in Tsosiehn, the three Chiang columns that had headed north from Canton during the summer had not been defeated. Preceded by political agents who had destroyed loyalties and beliefs ahead of them, they had toppled one warlord after another, and city after city to the south of Tsosiehn had been captured. No matter how strong he had become, it would be the Baptist General’s turn eventually, because the Chiang troops were frighteningly efficient with their smart new uniforms and well-cared-for weapons, and they had orders not to murder or rape, and had pledged themselves to lower rents and put down banditry so there’d be no need for the hated foreign gunboats on the river. The discipline in itself was enough to recommend them to the harassed peasantry and the Kuomintang’s foreign policy appealed to the jingoistic students, and there had been a feeling in the air for a long time that it would not be long before all the hated warlords were finally removed from the scene. No woman had ever been safe from their men, no matter what her wealth or class, and there were always wailing girls, and headless bodies on the garbage heaps along the river bank, surrounded by flies and waiting for the spring tides to wash them away.

  Whether he believed what he said or not, however, Lao seemed delighted by the turn of events and was inclined to be
jovial as he took out the medals.

  ‘No one has been forgotten,’ he said gaily They are pure silver and worth a great deal of money,’

  Ellie’s lip curled. ‘There never was a medal that was worth all the lives they cost,’ she said.

  Lao shrugged and pushed the suitcase forward. ‘The General regrets,’ he said, unperturbed, ‘that the full amount is not there. It was a very large sum to get hold of and there are no banks in this province. Of course, no one expected three machines to be destroyed at once, but he will send the rest as soon as he is able to lay his hands on it. Mr. De Sa will have to arrange it because they are unwilling to despatch large sums of money so far up-river.’

  When he had gone, Sammy pinned his medal to his chest and strutted about, saluting everyone in sight and pretending to be Tsu. The coolies collapsed in hysterical laughter and Lawn grinned boozily from the tent where the wrecked Fokker had been dragged, while the pupils marched round the field in a mock parade, followed by every one of Wang’s children down to the smallest and a few sightseers from Yaochow, shouting and blowing flutes and letting off fireworks in celebration.

  They had a party at the bungalow that night to celebrate. Mei-Mei put on a mass of Chinese dishes, and they all stood around--even boozy old Lawn--drinking Chinese wine. It was a hilarious affair with Ellie in great form, showing an unexpected ability to play the jew’s harp and getting merry enough on samshui to insist on giving Ira a victory kiss in front of all the others. As he grabbed hold of her and put on a big mock love scene amid cheers, he recalled isolated little events of the past weeks and it dawned on him that she must have been in love with him for some time now, even before Fagan was killed, and the knowledge left him with a humble guilty feeling.

  The party had gone on well into the night, but, in spite of heavy heads and threatening weather, Ira and Sammy left in the old thirty-hundredweight the following afternoon to look at what remained of General Kwei’s air force.

  They found the two scouts first, surrounded by soldiers in ill-fitting uniforms who were beaming all over their faces, full of elation at Ira’s victory. There was nothing left of one of the Camels but a ruined Le Rhône engine, a few scraps of burnt wood and canvas and a bent wheel, lying among the scorched wreckage of the farm where it had crashed. The farmer was poking with a stick among the smouldering beams and blackened stones where his livestock had roasted to death, but he and his family had eaten well of charred pig meat and he seemed quite content with the money Ira gave him as compensation. A platoon of Tsu soldiers had dragged the body of the pilot to one side, making no attempt to cover it, so that it lay near a flattened bush, a charred unrecognisable thing smelling of burnt flesh.

  The second Camel seemed to be spread across two fields, with the remains of one wing almost a quarter of a mile from where they found the tail surface. The Le Rhone was not badly damaged and they gave the sergeant in charge of the soldiers picking among the remains a Shanghai dollar to place a guard over it until they could arrange to hoist it on the lorry. Another few dollars made sure that nothing would be stolen and every scrap of wreckage collected.

  The pilot lay under a sheet of canvas nearby, a tall good-looking man whose face was unmarked apart from flecks of blood from the nose and ears. Silently the sergeant handed Ira a wallet. Significantly, there was no money in it, but there was a New York driving licence bearing the name of Leon Lucas Sergieff and a photograph of a girl sitting on a cart with what appeared to be an American farm in the background, all there was apart from a letter written in Russian and signed with an unreadable name, to show who Leon Lucas Sergieff was or why he was in China.

  The De Havilland lay crumpled on the edge of a field seven or eight miles to the east near Hakau and not far behind the lines, looking like a great wounded bird as it sagged across a rivulet that ran round the back of a broken empty farmhouse. There was the usual group of soldiers looking for something to steal, and along the road a hundred yards away, a steady stream of men was heading south-east with a few guns, and a great deal of ox-cart traffic carrying supplies. Soldiers cooking their rice nearby indicated with delighted signs and gestures that both the pilot and the observer had been alive when the machine had landed and both had been captured.

  ‘Talk much, Mastah. Tell officah fly-machines Kwei no have got. All finished. All gone.’

  They thanked them for the information and began to climb over the fuselage. The fabric was torn by bullet holes and branches, but the longerons appeared to be unbroken, and though one wing was a crumpled wreck, the other appeared to be only slightly damaged; and Ira prowled round it, his eyes glinting suddenly as he lifted the torn fabric to run a finger over the splintered ribs of silver spruce.

  ‘Sammy,’ he said slowly. ‘I think we can repair this machine.’

  Sammy looked startled. ‘Lor’, Ira, you seen them wings?’ Ira gestured excitedly. ‘Only the port side’s smashed, Sammy. If we can salvage them as they are, we can reconstruct ‘em. The starboard set’s hardly touched. We can use ‘em as a model for the other set and, with a new undercarriage, it ought to fly again.’

  Sammy was gaping at him and he went on enthusiastically. ‘I flew these things for a while in 1918 and I know a bit about them. And, Sammy, I helped my father build his old box kites. I know what to do.’

  Sammy still said nothing and Ira laughed. ‘The engine’s an American Liberty,’ he said. ‘Four hundred horse, Sammy, with cylinders like beer barrels. Big enough to lift a hell of a load. And I think it’s sound. With Heloïse, we don’t even have to take it out to move her.’

  Sammy was staring with his mouth open at the De Havilland now, and Ira could see the ideas forming in his mind, the enthusiasm growing as he considered possibilities and rejected impossibilities.

  ‘Ira,’ he said slowly, ‘if we repair her, she’s ours, isn’t she? Ours. Not Tsu’s.’

  Ira grinned. ‘Yes, Sammy. Ours.’ The idea was heady and exhilarating. ‘We can rig a sheerlegs right here and we can lift her and rig a temporary undercart to tow her away. Labour’s no problem and, Sammy, we’ve got the money to do it with now, and no flying for General Tsu because there’s nothing to fly against any more and winter’s coming. We’ve got months to get the spare parts and repair her before the spring.’

  Sammy was grinning too, now, and Ira went on eagerly.

  ‘We can get Eddie Kowalski to get hold of propellers, parts and a set of plans through the De Havilland agent in Shanghai and, between us, we ought to be able to work out what’s to be done. What do you think?’

  Sammy’s eyes were shining. He drew a deep breath and the words burst out of him enthusiastically. ‘I think we can do it, Ira,’ he said.

  They drove home through a thin rain as though the hounds of hell were after them. To their surprise the farmhouse at Yaochow was deserted and they saw that everyone--pupils, coolies, Ellie and Lawn--was standing in a group near the ditch at the far end of the field where they could see broken spars and the big box-kite tail of the Farman sticking up in the air in a pathetic pile of splintered spruce and torn white linen like a gracefully crumpled eggshell.

  ‘Someone’s busted the Longhorn,’ Sammy said at once, the disgust plain in his voice.

  The Peugeot detached itself from the group and came towards them. Ellie climbed out, her face flushed and guilty and curiously diffident in front of Ira.

  ‘I guess we’ve lost the Longhorn,’ she said at once. ‘Sung landed it in the ditch. Lawn says it’s a write-off.’

  ‘How’s Sung?’

  ‘He walked away from it. I’m sorry, Ira.’

  For a moment there was silence, because the old Farman had served them well, then Ira glanced at Sammy and grinned.

  ‘Any landing you can walk away from’s a good landing,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a damn. We’ve got a better machine now than any Longhorn and it belongs to us, not Tsu.’

  Sammy had climbed out of the lorry and was throwing ropes and timber and tackles into the back with the whe
els they’d bought from De Sa months before. As Ellie stared at him, bewildered, he swung round, grinning.

  ‘The two-seater Ira forced down yesterday, El,’ he said. ‘We can repair it.’

  Excitement flared in her eyes. ‘Honest?’

  Ira grinned. ‘Honest. And Tsu’s too busy in the east to worry about us and very happy because Kwei’s on the run. We’ve got the whole winter to get it flying and only five pupils to worry about.’

  ‘Four,’ she corrected. ‘Sung decided he’d rather go back to being an infantryman. He left an hour ago on Cheng’s bicycle.’

  Ira grinned again, in no mood to quibble about losses. ‘Let’s call it three, because Cheng’s on his own now, and we’ve got to salvage that De Havilland before those thieves of Tsu’s strip it for firewood.’

  As he began to grab for tools and cooking implements, Ellie swung round and dived for the farm building.

  ‘Hold your goddam hosses,’ she said. ‘I’m coming with you!’

  As they headed east again, Heloïse clanking behind the lorry, they began to pass a straggling column of troops on the march towards Hwai-Yang, ill-clad and carrying unfamiliar banners and umbrellas, and wearing everything from spats and boaters to furs, shabby, badly armed and out of step, all of them gaping in awe at Heloise. General Choy, realising he was on a winning ticket, had joined in the campaigning at last, while Tsu, his sphere of influence expanding again after Ira’s unexpected success, was reported already to have his yamen and his concubines at a country home levied from a Hwai-Yang merchant. Peter Cheng had had a story that he was already printing worthless Tsu dollars to exchange for gold with which to pay off his debt to Ira, and had even set up a bank and was forcing the local merchants, under the threat of decapitation, to trade with him so that he was rapidly gathering in every scrap of money in the district.

  Until the victory, Cheng had insisted, he had been for a long time having secret dealings with Shanghai bankers and had had a tug with steam up waiting downstream to whisk him to the coast, but with success in the air, he’d changed his plans and was preparing once more to move into Hwai-Yang and get a grip again on his province.