by Max Hennessy
Five
Throughout the meal Marie-Gabrielle was calm and quiet addressing them all, not favouring Dicken more than the others: appearing even to show more interest in Babington, who was much her own age and, like Dicken, had shared the siege of the Legation in Rezhanistan fourteen years before.
Foote was lost in admiration. ‘That’s a wonderful woman,’ he said. ‘I just can’t imagine her wasted in this backwater.’
When they returned to Chungking the following day, Marie-Gabrielle didn’t even bother to see them off. Father O’Buhilly probed gently but Dicken answered him shortly, in no mood to discuss his feelings with anybody.
The priest sighed. ‘She didn’t want you, boy?’ he asked.
Dicken swung round. ‘Who said anything about anybody wanting anybody?’
The priest shook his head sadly. ‘It was written all over your face. I’ve seen too much of life not to recognise it.’
It was pointless trying to dissemble. ‘No, Father,’ Dicken said flatly. ‘She didn’t want me.’
The priest’s great fist rested on his shoulder. ‘The Via Crucis was never meant to be easy, boy. An’, after all, ’tis no harder to get to Yuking, where she’ll be going, than it is to get to Changjao.’
Chungking was covered with a pall of rain. The river was rising and the fog made the slimy alleyways down the hill tunnels of dim greyness.
The rooms where they lived became filled with a misty miasma of chill and they took to wearing their coats throughout the day and sleeping with them on their beds at night. Fires sprang up at the corners of the streets and it became nothing unusual to stumble over a corpse when you went out of doors.
A raw wind was coming down from Siberia and people began to appear in fur-lined coats. Rickshaws with hoods splashed past soldiers in blue quilted uniforms marked with mud, their sandals thin in the sleet-driven puddles.
A sense of purposelessness prevailed. General Loomis grew more short-tempered and his mood spread to everybody else. They were all aware that what was being lifted over the Hump with such loss to brave young Americans was being squandered. Only a few benefited and it was clear that Chiang had no intention of launching an offensive, preferring to let the Americans and the British defeat the Japanese in other theatres while he waited in comfort to draw his share of the spoils at the peace conference.
The visit to Changjao had left Dicken more lonely than ever before. Until he’d seen Marie-Gabrielle again, he hadn’t noticed how empty his life had been and the sight of her had made him wonder what he was living for. Johnson was carrying on a heavy affair with an American nurse and even Babington, despite being married, never failed to miss the parties that were held.
A few people who dreamed of bombing Japan were busy building airstrips – at Chungking, Kunming, Kweiyang and Changsha – and Chinese men, women and children were digging them out almost with their bare hands. Whole villages were being torn down and irrigation systems which had existed for hundreds of years destroyed. But there was always an uneasy feeling that before they came into operation, the Japanese would mount a major campaign to overrun them.
The old Tupolev bombers that they’d seen at the airfield near Changjao were now back in Chungking and the Chinese pilots had been given Ilyushins, which were more modern, even if only slightly so, so that the American pilots were flying the Tupolevs to keep their hands in and to get away from boring desk jobs. Everybody was at it, and there were all sorts of machines – two Gladiators, an ancient DH9 from the days when Chiang had struggled to power, even an old Hawker Hart that was used for ferrying; an old thoroughbred reduced to a cabhorse.
The Japanese attack they’d been expecting started at the end of the winter. Japanese divisions had been moved south from Manchuria where they’d passed the war in idleness, and it burst on the Chinese like a thunderclap and roared across South China, destroying one newly-built airfield after another. Trying to find out what was happening, Dicken and Foote headed north with Johnson and Babington and a Chinese interpreter. The key areas were the gorges of the Yangtze, the bend of the Yellow River, the flanks of Yunnan in the south-west, and the rice bowl in the east. The Japanese had started their probing attacks near Yuking and General Lee was gathering his troops in a wide arc round the river, clusters of men with rusting machine guns and old rifles facing heavy artillery. Johnson hadn’t much faith in them holding.
By the time they reached Changjao Father O’Buhilly had disappeared and the little hospital was filled with exhausted Chinese boys in brown uniforms. Around them the army was in retreat and it didn’t take long to find out that the defences had consisted chiefly of two old French 75s with two hundred shells between them, a few mortars with no more than twenty bombs each and only 2000 rifles between 14,000 men.
As they passed through the area of the fighting, they saw Chinese soldiers in yellow uniforms spreadeagled on the ground close to the road. Shell holes and bomb craters gaped red in the earth, and among the houses blackened by fire soldiers were carrying a coffin slung on yellow ropes between them. On the river more bodies were floating but not moving with the current because their clothing was caught in the barbed wire that had been erected in the shallows.
There were a few blood-soaked flags in one of the courtyards with captured machine guns, rifles and scattered documents. Among them was a white horse, a splendid animal wearing Japanese accoutrements, which was shell- shocked and whinneying and kept making furious little spurts about the courtyard. In a corner was its owner, dead, his teeth still tightly clenched over a clip of cartridges, his hands bloody and broken. A Chinese soldier who couldn’t have been more than thirteen explained. ‘He was holding his revolver so tightly, we had to cut his fingers off to get it.’
Despite the casualties they had inflicted, Lee’s army was already disintegrating and looting the rice dumps, men staggering off with leaking sacks across their shoulders, indifferent to the outcome of the battle in the prospect of filling their empty bellies.
They had raided the shops in Changjao for food and wine and were setting fire to the petrol stores. Even as the mission drove in, a tremendous explosion shook the earth and roofs lifted in the blast as gold and white flames capped by black oily smoke leapt into the sky. A shed full of ammunition caught fire and tracer bullets began to whiz upwards in red and white arcs like something out of a Disney film.
People caught by the explosion lay with their backs against wrecked buildings, stripped of their clothes, their flesh tattooed with gravel and sand, a few still alive, their blood-caked mouths opening and shutting, their hands clenching and unclenching while refugees plodded by indifferently. Among them an old man had collapsed and his family were heaping straw over the body, while a woman, whose foot had been run over by a cart, had bound the bleeding limb and was hobbling on. A farmer carried his gurgling, laughing baby in a basket strung from a shoulder stave, its weight balanced at the other end with his household goods. Crowds were already gathering at the railway station and had lit fires to warm them as they waited. Most of them were starving and a horse that had fallen dead of exhaustion was being fought over, the carcass already stripped into red slivers.
Near the railway line they found an airfield where two Ilyushins were being prepared for a flight to the safety of Chungking. One of the Chinese pilots agreed to take Dicken up to see the front, and he and Babington climbed into the old bomber which lifted off in a hair-raising take-off that barely cleared the trees at the end of the field.
The countryside was white with early morning frost and in the distance they saw Japanese columns moving forward, circling the Chinese troops in the two great arcs of a pincer movement. The sun was like a fiery red ball in the grey autumn sky. When they landed and reported what they had seen to Colonel Kok, Lee’s Chief of Staff, he smiled and informed them that it was his intention to leave the troops where they were to absorb the Japanese thrust.
‘They’ll be wiped out,’ Dicken snapped.
‘Victories have to be bought with the blood of soldiers.’
‘They could pull back. China’s big enough. Where’s General Lee?’
‘General Lee is in Chungking. The Generalissimo is holding a banquet to be followed by a conference. His generals have been instructed to attend.’ Kok smiled coolly. ‘We have everything under control. General Lee left precise instructions what to do if the situation deteriorated. He has an excellent plan.’
No matter what Dicken suggested he was met by total indifference and the same blank expression.
‘Let’s get back to Chungking,’ Foote growled. ‘Let the General handle it.’
But General Loomis was in a desperate mood, his brows black with anger. ‘It’s useless, Judge,’ he said. ‘Stilwell’s started throwing his weight behind the Communists now and those guys in Washington are changing their minds. I wish to bejesus I could throw the whole goddam thing up and go home. I wouldn’t mind even shooting a Chiang general or two before I went. They’re talking now of modernising the Chinese army with the good old US as usual picking up the tab.’ He lit a cigar and drew a few desperate puffs at it. ‘It’ll never work. Stilwell would have to be in charge and Chiang would never agree to that.’
The hopelessness of the situation bore in on them all, depressing them as much as the cold that permeated everything. Occasionally letters arrived by hand from Father O’Buhilly. The Japanese were going through the Chinese armies like a knife through butter. Sick and ill-trained, their weapons faulty, their transport falling to pieces, there were already signs of panic. When soldiers had seized the peasants’ oxen to carry their supplies, the peasants had armed themselves with shotguns, knives and pitchforks and started disarming them, first in ones and twos, then in whole companies, until there was nothing at all to face the Japanese.
Then unexpectedly, the priest himself turned up. He was swathed in a huge fur coat and a fur hat with ear muffs, and round his throat was a vast red muffler. He was coldly angry.
‘We need help,’ he said. ‘Whatever help you can give us.’ His tone was unfriendly, almost hostile. ‘Everybody in Chungking’s sittin’ on his fat backside and north of Changjao people have died in thousands.’
‘Hunger, Father?’
‘Not hunger. Murder.’
For a moment the priest shook with rage and seemed unable to get his words out. When they came they were almost incoherent.
‘Lee,’ he said. ‘General Lee. Men, women and children. It was the river.’
Dicken dug out a bottle of rye and poured some into a glass. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Drink that.’ Finding a cigarette, he lit it and handed it over. ‘Now, get your breath. Sit still and tell me what’s happened.’
It was some time before the priest could bring himself to speak. ‘You’ll be knowin’ already,’ he said, ‘that the Yellow River is known as China’s sorrow. With its tributaries it carries more silt than any other waterway in the world, and as the river bed rises the peasants livin’ along the banks are continually raisin’ the dykes to prevent it overflowin’. They don’t always succeed.’
He begged another cigarette and silently Dicken poured more whisky. ‘It’s been goin’ on for centuries. A struggle between the river and the people. Near Yuking it’s twenty-four feet higher than the plain and Lee’s soldiers dynamited a hole in the southern bank to stop the Japanese.’ He spoke slowly, almost as if the words hurt him. ‘It flooded miles of country, drowned thousands in their sleep and left thousands more starvin’. The river was high and I heard the roar as it escaped. Four towns and five hundred villages are under water and all next year’s crops will be ruined as well because the soil’s washed away.’ The priest choked. ‘It’ll take years to repair the dykes. ’Twas one of the most callous acts in history and it was done because Chiang didn’t want to commit his armies, which he wants to guard him against the Communists, and Lee didn’t want to lose the loot he’s been collectin’ for years.’
Dicken swung round to snatch up a map which he spread on the table. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Where?’
Father O’Buhilly fished under all the clothing he was wearing to produce a pair of spectacles. They were bent and one of the lenses was cracked but he peered through them at the map and jabbed with a finger as thick as a banana. ‘There,’ he said.
‘And you need help?’
Father O’Buhilly shook his head slowly from one side to the other. ‘That was only me anger. There is no help. Nothin’ can be done for them. All we can do is rescue the babies. Surely God in His infinite mercy will allow us to do that. Surely the little ones have a right to life.’
‘How’re you going to get them out, Father?’ Dicken asked. ‘If the country’s flooded, you can’t use vehicles. Is there anywhere we can fly them out from?’
The priest’s head jerked up, and his eyes shone. He indicated his glass. ‘We’ve had two, boy. Why not complete the Holy Trinity?’ As he swallowed, he smiled for the first time. ‘Bless you, my son. I knew I could rely on you to think of somethin’. Yes, there is a patch of flat land at Sushan. It sticks out from the road like a tongue into the floods. Planes have landed there before. Lee used it on the few occasions when he joined his troops.’
‘If he can, Father, we can.’
‘Heaven’s blessin’s on you, me boy.’
‘Let’s have young Babington in on this. Perhaps even Walt Foote. They’re all on your side.’
When Babington arrived, Dicken sent him for Foote, who brought Johnson with him, and they all crowded round the map.
‘All I’m askin’,’ Father O’Buhilly said, ‘is for the little ones to be saved.’
Dicken looked at Johnson. ‘Can we raise an aeroplane?’ he asked.
‘Sir,’ Johnson said. ‘Right here in China there aren’t any airplanes nobody wants.’
‘What about those old Tupolevs? They can’t be used against the Japanese. They probably can’t be used for this even, but it might persuade the war correspondents to get a story out to the rest of the world. If they did, we might get something better.’
‘Do we have anybody who knows how to fly these goddam Tupolevs?’ Foote asked.
‘I’ll fly one,’ Johnson said. ‘I’ve flown one already. George Moreno’ll fly another. He’s a buddy of mine. And he’ll know other guys. They’ll be glad to do something instead of sitting on their asses here.’
‘What about petrol and ground crews?’
‘I’ll get ’em,’ Foote promised. ‘The General will swallow this whole. The poor guy’s eating his heart out at not being able to do anything worth while.’
Six
The Chinese were avoiding any mention of the disaster and the commander at the airfield was nervous about using his aeroplanes without permission, so that it took hours of arguing to persuade him.
He still remained uncertain that the old Tupolevs could land, despite everything that Father O’Buhilly said, but in the end he produced the ancient Hawker Hart and offered it to Dicken to fly in to find a landing area.
There was a saying among airmen that an aeroplane that looked good was usually good to fly and the Hart was no exception. She had been built as a light day bomber, converted because of her high performance to a two-seater fighter and finally developed through a number of variants. In Sweden, where she had been used as a dive bomber with such success that even the RAF had been aroused by the techniques, she had maintained a diving angle of 80-85 degrees, what the US Marines had called ‘When we say down, we mean straight down.’
She still looked a thoroughbred, despite the fact that the canvas wings and fuselage were covered with sewn-up tears and there were oil smears on the cowling. Though the guns had been removed, the heavy armadillo turret was still in place. In 1932 she had been considered an excellent machine, elegant, clean and capable of car
rying 500lb of bombs beneath the wings and fuselage. At the moment she didn’t look capable even of getting off the ground. But when they checked the old Kestrel engine it still seemed to work and Dicken looked at Babington.
‘You’ve flown with me in some bloody funny aeroplanes, Bab,’ he said. ‘Are you willing to have a go in this?’
Babington studied the automatic turret. ‘We used to say that with that thing the gunner had more control of the aircraft than the pilot. And the trouble with them was that when the aircraft banked, they ran away and you found yourself hanging head down, staring at nothing.’
The old machine struggled into the sky over the peaks of the hills and within half an hour they could see the broad expanse of water where the river had overflowed. Descending near Changjao, they saw ruined villages and the drifting wreckage of houses and barns. The river bank showed a gaping hole through which the water was still flowing in a trickle.
They found a raised road from Changjao and followed it northwards, eventually seeing what appeared to be a large island, flat and almost treeless, lifting just above the water level. At one end was a group of buildings, one of them larger than the rest, fluttering above it a white flag with a red cross in the centre.
With no idea what the ground was like, Dicken flew low over the patch of isolated land, looking for a suitable landing strip. Eventually he found what appeared to be a large field surrounded by paddles and, with no idea what the surface was like, lifted the nose and let the machine drift in. She settled gently and ran barely twenty yards before she came to a stop.
Immediately, from the group of buildings people started to run towards them. As they climbed down, the crowd surrounded the machine, chattering in their high-pitched dialect. Eventually they parted and Dicken saw Marie- Gabrielle approaching. Her face was alight with hope but when she saw him her face became bleak, shut-in and wary.
