Raging Sea, Searing Sky

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Well, that’s great. You will take her in to dinner,’ Mrs Pierce announced. She had no daughters in Shanghai, and was therefore without an axe to grind.

  A Chinese waiter presented Lew with a cocktail, and he sipped, staring at Brenda, who stared back, and waited for Mrs Pierce to hurry off to welcome another guest.

  ‘Lloyd?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s a long story. No, as a matter of fact, it’s a very short story.’

  ‘But he isn’t here with you.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not right now.’

  ‘You’ve been leading a busy life.’

  ‘So have you,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. But I never did believe in coincidences.’

  ‘There are no such things,’ she told him enigmatically, and they were interrupted.

  There was no further opportunity for talk the whole evening. Mrs Pierce ran an animated party, and the conversation flowed, and Brenda was by a long way the prettiest woman present, so it mainly flowed around her. From which Lew was able to gather that her second husband was a businessman, that she was still not a mother, but that she was indeed still actually very much married. He could only relate that to what she had said earlier, and wait.

  ‘May I drop you home?’ he asked, when the party began to break up.

  ‘I’m staying with Bridget Pierce.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But I would like to see you again, Lewis. After all, that’s why I’m in Shanghai.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I told you, there are no such things as coincidences.’

  ‘Well...how about lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘I will enjoy that,’ she said.

  *

  She had gained enormously in confidence since last he had seen her, and that had enhanced her beauty. And she had come to China to see him? He could not accept that, and reminded himself that the word she had used was Shanghai rather than China. Yet to have her here in Shanghai...but he was never going to touch a woman again. So he had told himself. Only Brenda was not a woman. Brenda was Brenda.

  He slept badly, was ten minutes early to collect her. Tom Pierce was at his office — he was an import-export agent — but Bridget was her usual gracious self, and seemed delighted that her house guest was being taken off to lunch. The odd thing was that Lew felt she and Brenda did not really know each other very well, and that she had even been rather afraid of the younger woman. But then, he reflected, perhaps she knew this fellow Lloyd, and estimated that Brenda might be up to no good.

  He hoped she was right.

  Brenda wore a pink chiffon dress with black hem and bow and a square neckline. Skirts were longer than they had been when last they had met, but she still revealed very shapely ankles, and she matched the outfit with a huge straw hat. He took her to the best of the local restaurants — it had a French cuisine — and gazed at her as they sipped an aperitif.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about May,’ she said.

  ‘Were you?’

  She smiled. ‘Of course. A broken marriage is always tragic. And you never answered my cri de coeur.’

  ‘I meant to. God, how I wish I had. But...when I got back from Japan, May seemed to have turned over a new leaf. It took me nine years to discover it had only been a new sheet. Several.’

  ‘I find that difficult to understand,’ Brenda said, seriously. ‘In any woman, when they could share a bed with you.’

  ‘So maybe you’re unique,’ he said, and touched her fingers. ‘But I am sure glad you are. What about Lloyd?’

  ‘On the other hand,’ she went on, ‘you never change. Here we are, meeting for the first time in twelve years, and you figure all you need to do is tap my finger and whoops, we’re in bed.’

  He flushed. ‘I had the idea that was what you had in mind.’

  She studied him. ‘How badly do you have it in mind?’

  ‘When I left May, I thought I would never want a woman again. I didn’t, until last night. I love you, Brenda. I have always loved you.’

  ‘You make life kind of difficult.’

  ‘Because of Lloyd?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let’s order.’

  He waited for her to enjoy her meal and have a glass of wine. She was skirting around the subject. A subject, anyway. He would just have to be patient. Because whatever she might say of him, she certainly hadn’t come to Shanghai just to touch his fingers and disappear again.

  ‘That was very good,’ she commented when the meal was finished. ‘You live a very civilised life here.’

  ‘In the Concession.’ He stirred his coffee. ‘Too civilised.’

  ‘It’s not the same up-river?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘I’d like to see that. Would you take me?’ His head jerked. ‘Take you?’

  ‘On Tombstone.’

  ‘You have got to be kidding, Brenda. Heck, I would love to have you on Tombstone, but that would be a short cut to a dishonourable discharge. Hallstrom is just waiting for the opportunity to nail me.’

  ‘I suppose he is,’ she said, as she knew the entire story of Lew’s Medal of Honour. ‘Still...would you like to show me your ship?’

  ‘I’d love that.’ He paid the bill, escorted her to the automobile. He was feeling pleasantly anticipatory, even if he knew he was again asking for at least a rap over the knuckles from Hallstrom. But Brenda was Navy, and her father had also reached flag rank before retiring. And they were old friends. No one need know more than that.’

  Most of the crew were ashore, but those on board were delighted to see their captain escorting a lovely woman, stood to attention as he showed her the guns and the messdeck, allowed her to look in at the engine room, and then took her up to the deserted bridge. ‘Not exactly a battleship,’ he apologised. ‘But good enough for the job she has to do.’

  ‘Cruising up and down the Yangste-Kiang,’ Brenda murmured. ‘Which is your cabin?’

  ‘Right here.’ He hesitated, his hand on the knob. ‘It’s kind of small, hot, and intimate.’

  ‘But big enough for two.’

  Now she was making all the play. He opened the door, and she stepped inside, looked at the desk, the wardrobe, and the bunk. ‘Home.’

  He stepped in beside her, closed the door. ‘There’s nowhere else.’

  She took off her hat, sat on the bunk. He remained standing. ‘Brenda...if we don’t reappear in about one minute flat every man on board this ship is going to know just why we didn’t. That means all the Concession is going to know, this time tomorrow.’

  Brenda kicked off her shoes. ‘Will that bother you?’

  ‘Only in so far as it compromises you. This guy Lloyd...’

  ‘Is in Washington?’

  ‘That’s not so far, nowadays.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’ she asked, swinging her feet on to the bunk.

  He sat beside her, took her in his arms, found her mouth. ‘God,’ he said. ‘If only things could have been different.’

  ‘Things are never different. Do you really love me, Lew?’

  ‘Just try me.’

  She gazed at him. ‘Over and above the call of duty?’

  He kissed her some more, and his hand drifted down to her thigh.

  She rested hers on top of it. ‘Suppose I was to ask you to do something for me?’

  He moved his hand, got up, and sat on the desk. ‘Tit for tat?’

  ‘No,’ she said seriously. ‘I will make love with you, right now, Lew. I want to. God, how I want to. But you have to want to too.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No. You might change your mind when you hear what I have to say. I came here to...recruit you. No other reason, until I saw you last night.’ She made a most attractive moue. ‘Well...maybe I did know what I’d want when I saw you. But that isn’t why I came.’

  ‘Try talking English,’ he suggested. ‘You want to split with Lloyd, right?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ she said. ‘I can
never do that.’

  He scratched his head. ‘Then you’ve lost me.’

  ‘I told you, there’s something I want you to do for me.’

  ‘So shoot.’

  Brenda hitched her skirt to her thighs, and released her right stocking from her suspender belt. Slowly, almost thoughtfully, she rolled it down her leg; if nature had slightly skimped on her from the waist up, she had the most perfect legs. But Lew reckoned she knew that.

  Now she wriggled her toes. ‘I would like you to work for me,’ she said.

  Presumably she had also gone nuts during the twelve years they had been separated. But he was enjoying looking at her legs. ‘I work for Uncle Sam, sweetheart. I thought you knew.’

  She was dealing with her left stocking. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Come again?’

  She shrugged, stretched out her bare legs. ‘Well, when you didn’t come riding out of the sunset I had to find something to do. So I went to work. With Pa around it wasn’t difficult. You realise that what I am telling you is top secret.’

  ‘Then why tell it?’

  ‘I’ve just explained that. I need you to work for me.’ She leaned back, propping the pillow behind her. ‘I can prove I’m genuine.’

  And Lew knew she was. Brenda would be like that. ‘Navy Intelligence?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And the Pierces are your local agents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is this how you always recruit your people?’

  She smiled. ‘Only when it suits me to do so. When we started to hear of your problems, I recommended you as a possible recruit. It’s a tricky business, using actual service personnel in the field, because of the conflict of loyalties, and responsibilities, which can arise. And of course we would never employ a man with a wife and family, which rather limits our choices, as our people also have to be men of guts and ability. And above all, totally faithful to the Intelligence Section, and totally trustworthy. But...the business I’m on now can only succeed if we have a serving officer on our side. So I asked for the assignment of sounding you out. Not only because I wanted to see you again, but because I knew you were the man for the job. My job.’

  ‘Which is?’ But for the first time he was more interested in what she was saying than in her.

  ‘Lew...’ suddenly she sat up, her face serious. ‘World War Two is going to start, right here. Maybe it already has.’

  ‘Oh, come now.’

  ‘I’m serious, Lew. We are in possession of information which indicates that everything that has happened these past three years, and maybe even before that, has been part of a Japanese conspiracy to dominate all of East Asia.’

  ‘I can’t accept that.’

  ‘Because of your friend Hashimoto Kurita? He’s not your friend, Lew, any more than you could afford to be his if you knew that one day you would have to fight Japan.’

  ‘But I don’t know that.’

  ‘Kurita does. Do you know what job he’s doing now?’

  ‘We correspond. I know he was promoted captain.’

  ‘He’s also second in command of the naval branch of the Kempei-tai. That’s the Japanese secret police. We don’t have an equivalent, thank God. But you can take it from me they’re a pretty tough bunch. And they, like all the armed forces, are now dedicated to the creation of what they call a Greater Asia Prosperity Sphere. The reason is very simple. Japan is just about the most crowded country in the world. It may not look it, in terms of people per square mile, but too much of those square miles are uninhabitable mountains. They have to expand, or starve. So they expand into China. Okay, world opinion condemns them for that, and they say, sucks to world opinion. But they have to bear it in mind that world opinion, and particularly United States opinion, may one day decide to stop them. So once they have begun something like this, they have to work out how to continue it.’

  Lew found himself frowning. What she was saying was strangely reminiscent of what Hashimoto himself had said, twelve years before. But to think of Hashimoto as his enemy was impossible.

  Brenda had observed the frown. ‘There are things the Japanese need, things like oil, and rice, and rubber, things they have to have if they are going to defy world opinion over a period of time. Things they can’t get in China, either. Things they can only obtain from the Dutch East Indies, from British Malaya...and maybe even from the Philippines.’

  ‘And is any Japanese statesman crazy enough to suppose we would just stand by and let them do that? Or the British, or the Dutch?’

  ‘Nobody knows, Lew. Because right now we are all just standing by and watching them hacking away at Manchuria. Right? And you must know it’d be damned difficult to persuade some farmer in Kansas that we have to go to war to stop Japan taking over British Malaya, for example.’

  ‘So where do you come in to all this?’

  ‘We have to stop them, without anyone being aware we’re doing it.’ She leaned back again, satisfied that she was making progress. ‘It happens that Japan is meeting more trouble than they expected, in China. That’s good for us. But Chinese resistance is an uncertain quality. Chiang Kai Shek and his Kuo Min Tang bothers us. He seems to be more concerned with licking the Communists in China than the Japanese in Manchuria. And he’s not doing all that well against the Commies, either. The whole scenario in China could fall apart, at any moment. And we now have information that it is going to do just that. Who is the most powerful of the warlords?’

  ‘Well, I guess Chang Huang Lu has that reputation.’

  ‘Who happens to be on your patch.’

  ‘Wrong. My patch specifically excludes Chang Huang Lu. Hallstrom doesn’t feel he’s very fond of the Stars and Stripes.’

  She nodded. ‘We know that. But his dislike of the Stars and Stripes goes deeper than anything Hallstrom imagines. We have information, from our agents in Wu-Yang, that Chang is actually in the pay of the Japanese, and that at a given signal, far from supporting the Nationalists as he now appears to do, he will begin a campaign in Chiang Kai Shek’s rear which will enable the Japanese to complete the conquest of Manchuria and perhaps even invade China itself.’

  ‘Rough. So you aim to let Chiang Kai Shek know this.’

  She shook her head. ‘We don’t think that would do very much good. It has to be our business to stop it happening.’

  ‘Our business?’

  ‘Our agent in Wu-Yang informs us that not all of Chang Huang Lu’s people are happy about the idea of fighting on the Japanese side. In particular some of his army commanders are against it. They would like to overthrow him and set up one of themselves. This man would be pro-Nationalist and pro-American, if we play our cards right. But they won’t act without overt help from us.’

  ‘Like a gunboat steaming up the Han Kuang? Now I know you’re nuts. That would be an international incident.’

  She nodded. ‘It has to be done in such a way that firstly, it’s understandable to world opinion, and secondly, that no one, no one in the world, Lew, has any idea it was premeditated. And by no one I mean even Hallstrom. But especially the Japanese.’

  ‘They’ll have to be very dumb.’

  She gazed at him. ‘I’m going up there.’

  ‘You? You have to be nuts.’

  ‘Why? I’m going with Bridget Pierce. To visit an old friend, the wife of a missionary called McIntyre.’

  ‘McIntyre? For God’s sake, I know him. He’s British.’

  ‘Maybe. But he’s our agent. He and his wife operate a mission at Wu-Yang, Chang Huang Lu’s capital.’

  ‘Now, look here,’ Lew protested.

  ‘Just listen. When we have been there about a week, there will come a call for help.’

  ‘You have got to be joking. Do you think Hallstrom will take any notice of that? He’ll say, two dames want to go off into the interior by themselves, they deserve what’s coming to them.’

  ‘We know he won’t take any notice of it, Lew. But you will. Because you are my lover.’

&nb
sp; ‘Am I?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Didn’t you say the fact that I have spent half an hour in here with you will be all over Shanghai by tonight?’

  ‘Holy Jesus Christ.’

  ‘But,’ she added. ‘There is no need for us to play act, unless you wish to. The important thing is that when you hear I am in trouble, you will disobey orders and come to my rescue, and no one will think you are anything more than an irresponsible American hero.’

  ‘And I get to bring your head back as a memento, is that it?’

  ‘I’ll still have my head. Because it’s a set-up, don’t you see? When I’m in Wu-Yang I certainly mean to have a word with General Kang Lee, that’s our man in Chang Huang Lu’s army. But equally I don’t mean to get into trouble. The message will be sent by a silly young woman, me, who got scared over nothing at all.’

  ‘And I will respond and cause, as you say, an international incident.’

  ‘Which will result in the overthrow of Chang Huang Lu.’

  ‘You’re sure about this?’

  ‘Quite sure. He refuses to permit American gunboats on the Han Kuang. He will therefore try to stop you coming up to Wu-Yang. You will insist, very politely, that you must make sure that Bridget and I are safe. He will undoubtedly tell you we are, but you will still insist. Either way, then, he loses. If he permits you to take Tombstone to Wu-Yang, he is knuckling under to the Yankees. If he tries to stop you, you blast your way in. Either way, his prestige suffers an irreparable blow, and Kang Lee will be able to act.’

  ‘If I blast my way up to Wu-Yang, Brenda, supposing I can, men are going to get killed. Maybe American sailors.’

  ‘Don’t you think Washington knows that? I told you, Lew, we’re fighting a war, even if right now it’s a secret one.’

  Lew reflected that his father had once told him that the higher he rose, the more he would realise how dirty a business was high politics. ‘And I get cashiered,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘No. You will be reprimanded and removed from your command here. But you’ll be promoted and given another command somewhere else, just as soon as possible.’

  ‘On your say so?’

  ‘On die say so of the Navy, Lew. Anyway...’ she smiled at him. ‘You’ll be a popular hero, for rescuing a damsel in distress.’