‘I wish to inspect the conditions of their captivity,’ Lew said.
‘They are very wicked people,’ Chang repeated.
‘Time is running short,’ Lew told him. ‘My men have orders to open fire in one hour’s time, if I am not returned, with your prisoners, by then.’
Chang looked at Teng Fu again.
‘This is true, great Chang,’ Teng Fu said, and now there was definitely a trace of contempt in his voice, as he discerned the warlord’s alarm. ‘I heard the instructions given, myself.’
Chang inclined his head. ‘Very well. Take him to them, and release them into his custody. Leave my city, American, and do not return. Do not let any of your people return, either. I have done with them.’
‘You will accompany us,’ Lew said.
Chang hesitated, and Lew looked at his watch.
Chang stood up. ‘Do you think I’m afraid of what you will see?’ he demanded. ‘Your people have been treated as Chinese malefactors would be treated. Why should they be treated differently?’
‘If they have been harmed, in any way,’ Lew said, ‘there will have to be an indemnity.’
‘An indemnity?’ Chang asked.
The officers exchanged glances.
‘Yes,’ Lew said. ‘I will tell you when I have seen Mrs Lloyd.’
Chang made no reply to that, walked in front of him to a side door. The officers followed, led by Teng Fu. Lew stayed at Chang’s shoulder, towering above him as they walked along a corridor, emerged into an inner courtyard, and descended some steps. Now the perfume of the palace was left behind, and his nostrils were assailed by the stench of unwashed human bodies, and human excreta, as they approached a gate, at which stood two armed guards. At the sight of their master they stood to attention, and when Chang inclined his head, one of them opened the gate. Inside was another courtyard, smaller than the one they had just left, a place of trampled and discoloured grass, in the centre of which was an execution block. Lew caught his breath, because on a stake in front of the block was the head of a man. It was already badly decomposed, but he could tell it had belonged to a Chinese man; from the opened mouth and the still discernible expression he estimated the man had been tortured up to the moment of execution.
‘That is the traitor, Kang Lee,’ Chang told him. ‘With whom your people conspired.’
‘Where are they?’ Lew growled.
Chang pointed, and Lew realised that there were little slits in the wall surrounding the compound, almost at ground level, and that there were faces, eyes, at all the slits, staring at him.
‘Bring them up,’ he commanded.
Chang inclined his head, and the guards hurried forward, and opened a trap set into the wall next to one of the slits. One of them reach inside and pulled, and John McIntyre crawled out. He had not shaved in several days, nor had he been particularly well fed, Lew thought. He was also naked, and his body was a mass of bruises.
Lew felt his heart constrict, as the missionary, unable to stand, fell to his knees. Because now the women were coming out, hair unkempt and filthy, as were their naked bodies. Brenda was last. ‘Lew,’ she said. ‘Oh, Lew,’ and fell at his feet. There were deep weals on her buttocks where she had been bastinadoed. He dared not think what else might have happened to her. Bridget Pierce had also been whipped, but Helen McIntyre seemed relatively unharmed. Save in the mind. All of their eyes held the look of sheer catastrophe; he knew that at the very least they had been forced to watch Kang Lee being decapitated.
‘Wicked people,’ Chang Huang Lu said, mildly. ‘Your government must understand this. But I do not wish war with the United States. You may take these wretched creatures and leave. And to show my good faith I will pay an indemnity. I will pay a thousand taels for each of them. Now take them and go.’
Lew looked at Brenda, lying at his feet. She was not unconscious, and she stirred as she heard him speaking. Then he looked at Bridget Pierce, who looked back at him, unable to speak, and then at the McIntyres — their faces seemed to be shrouded in a red mist.
Then he looked at Marshal Chang. ‘The indemnity will be one million taels for each one,’ he said.
Chang’s head jerked, and his officers seemed to draw closer together.
‘There is not that much money in all Wu-Yang,’ Chang protested.
‘Then you must find it,’ Lew told him. He turned to Teng Fu. ‘I wish clothes for these people, and a litter to take them to the waterfront. Haste.’
Teng Fu looked at the warlord.
‘Four million taels,’ Chang muttered. ‘I cannot raise so much. I will not.’ He glared at Lew, suddenly defiant. ‘You want war? You will have war.’ He raised his hand to point. ‘Seize this scoundrel. Throw him in the cell.’
Brenda gasped, and hugged herself, rising to her knees. Bridget Pierce began to cry. But Lew acted more quickly than any of them, drawing his revolver, and leaping forward in the same instant, to catch Chang round the waist and lift him from the ground, tucked under his left arm. The warlord howled his fear and his anger, and his officers started forward, but Lew put the revolver muzzle to his head. ‘Hold it, or you’re short one great Chang,’ he snapped.
The men checked at a word from Teng Fu, and Lew gazed at them, while Chang, squirmed and kicked, but could not get free. Lew knew the warlord must look ridiculous to his officers, and that situation he intended to maintain.
‘What do you want?’ Teng Fu asked. ‘We will not pay you four million taels.’
‘Well,’ Lew said, ‘we might be able to reach agreement on that. It is this...’ he tensed his muscles, and Chang howled some more. ‘That is causing the trouble. You know this, Teng Fu, just as Kang Lee knew it. I will take this man back with me as a prisoner, to stand trial for his many crimes. I will accept him in place of any indemnity. Is that agreeable to you?’
Teng Fu gazed at him, then at his fellow officers.
‘And before I go,’ Lew said, ‘we will sit down and sign a treaty of amity between you and the United States, and you will affirm your loyalty to Marshal Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuo Min Tang, and your eternal enmity for the Japanese forces which are invading your country.’
Once again the officers exchanged glances.
‘In return, I will undertake that my country will persuade the Generalissimo to confirm you as a ruler of Wu-Yang Province, General Teng Fu.’
‘And there will be no indemnity?’
‘I have said this. But we must make haste. The two hours are nearly up.’
‘Then there is no time,’ Teng Fu said. Lew grinned at him. ‘Just lower the flag on your roof, General. My second-in command will understand what you mean.’
Chapter Thirteen
Tokyo, 1940
‘Some list,’ remarked Admiral Slater. He had been returned from Pearl to Washington, and now surveyed the three men in front of him. ‘Okay, gentlemen, you may leave the prisoner.’
The two lieutenant-commanders saluted, and left the office. Lew remained standing to attention before the desk.
‘At ease, Commander,’ the admiral said. ‘Sit down.’
Lew slowly lowered himself on to one of the comfortable leather armchairs, removing his cap from under his arm and placing it on his knee.
‘Smoke?’ the admiral asked.
‘Thank you, sir, no.’
‘No vices, eh? Save insubordination.’
Lew made no reply. The lead had to come from the other side.
‘Captain Hallstrom just about makes you out to be some kind of modern day pirate,’ Slater observed, glancing at the folder in front of him. ‘I’m not sure a lot of other people don’t feel the same way. On the other hand, you’re Chiang Kai Shek’s blue-eyed boy, and a popular hero to the newspapers...’ he grinned. ‘And not too unpopular in the State Department, either. On the other hand...’ he took a cigarette himself and lit it. ‘What you did cannot be condoned.’ His smile widened. ‘Or some people might just come to the conclusion you were following orders, instead of being bul
l-headedly in love. So I’m afraid we’re going to have to bury you, for a couple of years, Commander. The design office. That’s interesting work, because in case you didn’t know it, things are beginning to move. What with Japan pulling out of the Treaty, and Germany denouncing Versailles, it’s starting to look like a free-for-all once again, and I’ll tell you, that suits me down to the ground — so long as we don’t have to fight anybody until our new ships are in commission. But it’s speed and strength that we want, McGann. And speed in construction as well. Got me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right. Now I will tell you in confidence that we’re all as proud as hell of what you did.’ He glanced at Lew’s arm, which had moved stiffly in the salute. ‘There’s a purple heart on its way, and as soon as the ruckus dies down you’ll get your next stripe. A thick one.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But remember...while in the future you only disobey orders when instructed to do so, you don’t exceed your orders either. Got me?’
‘My orders are rather vague, sir, as regarding Marshal Chang.’
‘Yeah, that’s what comes of employing a woman. How is she, anyway?’
Lew took a long breath. ‘I was hoping you would be able to tell me that, sir. I have not been allowed to see Mrs Lloyd since our return to Shanghai.’
‘Is that a fact. Well, she is a married woman, you know, McGann.’
‘I would still like to be able to pay my respects, sir.’
‘Is that what you call it. Well, you can have a week’s furlough before taking up your duties. Mrs Lloyd has an apartment in Annapolis. My secretary will give you the address.’
*
Lew’s heart pounded like a schoolboy as he took the so familiar road up the Chesapeake. To see Brenda, beaten and cowed, to know what had happened to her, to understand the humiliation of a woman like that being stripped and manhandled in public, had left him bitterly ashamed of his own manhood. But he had been able to do nothing about it. All four of Chang’s prisoners had spent the voyage back down the Yangste in borrowed bunks, and had needed immediate hospitalisation when Tombstone had regained Shanghai, and then, in the furore caused by his action in placing the warlord under arrest as well as engaging in a pitched battle with his forces, he had been removed from his command by Hallstrom and whisked away before he had even been able to visit them. That had been three months ago, and in that time he had not heard from her. He did not know if she had written, but he had been held incommunicado from anyone else connected with the affair, while the controversy stirred by his action had raged. Fortunately, as Admiral Slater had pointed out, the man who mattered most, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, had been delighted to have Chang Huang Lu not only liquidated as a rival, but presented to him as a prisoner; he had promptly had Chang shot, which had stirred yet another controversy. This time the Japanese had got into the act, but they had been labouring under the handicap of being unable to accuse the United States of aggression in China, as they were themselves engaging in such aggression, or in too openly admitting that Chang Huang Lu had been a client of theirs; they merely accused the Generalissimo of judicial murder. The British, of course, kept perfectly quiet — apart from a fourth leader in The Times about changing American habits — having dealt in sufficient gunboat diplomacy of their own over the years.
While whatever the official protestations that Lieutenant-Commander McGann had acted entirely without orders and had been arrested and would certainly be at least severely reprimanded for hazarding his command in search of four people who were obviously up to no good, the American press and public had once again taken Lew to their hearts, and recalled that as a Congressional Medal of Honour holder who had been wounded at Jutland and had sunk a German submarine very nearly by himself, he had acted in best traditions both of the Navy, of his famous family, and of himself.
This was all very gratifying, as it had been to receive enthusiastic letters from Clive and Joan and Wally, congratulating him. Just to hear from them had been a treat; that they should all have declared themselves so much on his side — and where an obvious mistress was involved — was one of the happiest moments of Lew’s life. Clive was due to leave school in the near future, and was intending to take a special entry into the Royal Navy’s College in Dartmouth, to gain a commission. He was acting like a McGann, Lew thought, even if he might not be one. Joan, at fifteen, was at a girl’s boarding school, and Wally, twelve, was just starting at Winchester. His children, Lew thought. Wally at the least, had every chance of being his. He had not seen them for nearly four years, and however often he wondered just who their fathers were, he knew that he still loved them and missed them, with all of his being.
There had been no word from May, nor had the children mentioned her, except in passing. She was no doubt living her own life, as she had always done, married or not. Yet she was still his wife.
But Brenda was the woman he loved. If only there was some way to bring Brenda and the children together under his aegis...wishful thinking. He had embarked on a most uneven domestic existence, where happiness was seldom to be achieved — if perhaps the more precious for its stolen moments.
As now, Brenda stood on the verandah to greet him, as tall and straight and slender as he had always known her. ‘Lew!’ She held his hands, and drew him close for a kiss, then took him into the house. A small house, and a spinster house. She moved stiffly, too.
‘Oh, Brenda,’ he said. Were there streaks of grey in her hair, or was that only a glimmer of light from the sunset?
‘You’re going to be all right,’ she said. It was only half a question.
‘Oh, sure. I read the papers,’ he agreed. ‘But you...’
Her shoulders moved, and she sat opposite him. ‘I’m enjoying a long vacation. There’s liquor over there. I’ll have bourbon.’
He poured, for them both, gave her a glass. ‘Will you tell me?’
‘Why? To make you mad all over again? It’s done now, Lew. I conned you, and you overreacted like the hero you are. Like the McGann you are, I guess. I didn’t expect that much.’
‘I love you, Brenda,’ he said. ‘Whatever I did, it was for love of you. Nothing else. So...I’m claiming my male prerogatives.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, who am I to get mad at? Chiang Kai Shek did everything I might have done.’
‘Everything I might have wanted,’ she agreed, and sipped her drink.
‘Was it hell?’
She considered his question, then nodded. ‘More than I had bargained for. And if you hadn’t come along, I guess he would have stuck my head on a pole, too.’
‘What went wrong?’
‘Everything. I guess Johnnie McIntyre was just naive, and so was poor Kang Lee. He was genuine enough, but he didn’t know he had already been found out by Chang, and Chang was only waiting for him, or us, to make an overt move. Not knowing this, when Johnnie told me he’d fixed up a meeting with Kang so we could make our final plans, I went along with the idea. So Bridget and I had the meeting, and the three of us were arrested.’
‘And then?’
She shivered, and hugged herself.
‘If you don’t want to talk about it...’
‘I think I do, Lew. To you.’
He waited, while she sipped her drink, and stared at the wall.
‘They...they roughed us up when we were arrested. I guess it tickled them to have two American women at their mercy. They dragged poor Bridget around the room by her hair, and then took her outside and rolled her in dung.’ She was silent for a few minutes. ‘They had other plans for me.’ She glanced at him. ‘It was the first time I ever regretted being good looking. I’d have settled for a roll in the dung. But that was for starters. When they took us back to the palace, Chang got in the act. He wanted to know the names of everyone connected with the plot. Well, we didn’t know. Kang Lee did, but he had a lot of guts. God, what they did to him. Before our eyes. We were sick. But he wouldn’t tell Chang anything, so they cut his head off. That was actu
ally a release. Then it was our turn. Bridget and I were bastinadoed...do you know how that’s done?’
‘Some.’
Another shiver. ‘They stripped us and laid us on the ground. One man held my wrists, another my ankles. There were so many people there, laughing. You know how the Chinese can laugh. And then it began. Two men, one on each side, with a cane. They don’t hit you hard. The first couple of blows are almost a relief. But they go on hitting, steadily, first one and then the other. There is no break, and the blows are always in the same place. The doctors tell me I’m going to be scarred for life. And the pain builds and builds. God, I screamed, and I cursed, and I ate dirt and I vomited, and the man holding my wrists just grinned at me. Do you know, when they are done, I had worn a hole several inches deep in the earth. When they were finished. They only stopped when I fainted.’ She finished her drink, and he refilled her glass. ‘Bridget had already implicated the McIntyres. So they arrested Johnnie, and flogged him as well, but he couldn’t tell them anything either. So they locked us up. I guess Chang was still working himself up to take off our heads when he heard you were coming. Oh, Lew, I am so glad you were coming.’
He moved to sit beside her. ‘And now you’re through.’
Her head turned. ‘No one is ever through, Lew. Or should be.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Because I’ve been raped and beaten and humiliated? I knew that was on the cards when I signed on.’
‘What does Lloyd think about it?’
‘Lloyd doesn’t exist, Lew. A girl needs to be married, that’s all.’
‘Hell,’ he said. ‘But...in that case...’
She shook her head.
‘Brenda...’ he held her hands. ‘For God’s sake...’
‘We’re working sailors. In our own way.’
‘You’re entitled to quit. Listen, I’ll get a divorce. The hell with the Pope. Brenda...’
‘Wouldn’t work, Lew. Not now.’
‘Why? Brenda...’
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