Juan in China

by Eric Linklater

  The colour of the fugitive throng was dark. They wore tunics and trousers of sombre blue, or long black gowns. The red banners above them were the brighter by contrast. In many places the scarlet papers, printed with greetings, with which they had welcomed the New Year, were still stuck to walls and windows. And no matter what ill luck the future brought them, their children and survivors would welcome the coming years with the same arrogant colour of their hearts’ blood. War and disaster were a transient thing, but the life of China was eternal, and their eternal misery would always be lighted with bursts of laughter like red banners in a dismal street.

  In the Foreign Settlement the Europeans were very angry, and worried about their investments. They were mobilizing their Defence Force. With stern impartiality they were making ready to defend their property against the aggressor, and against fugitives from the aggressor. Brokers spent sleepless nights, but English matrons refused to cancel their bridge-parties, and the Shanghai Scottish, stepping out of their vocational trousers and wrapping their loins in the heart-taking filibeg, said that war was a damnable thing, but a welcome change from going to an office every day of their lives.

  Yet work, on the whole, was done with the same intensity and almost in the same volume as though nothing threatened the profitable continuity of life. Merchants and accountants bought, sold, and calculated; caterers drove their cooks to redoubled toil and trebled their prices as the swarm of fugitives demanded sustenance; and the coolies on the wharves beside the incoming ships staggered beneath their enormous burdens and chanted the interminable song of labour. ‘Ley-la, hui-la, hui-la, hang-la?’ they sang without ceasing and were dwarfed by their loads. Labour for bread could not halt though all the world were at war, and labour for profit would not cease before the shell-holes that showed the end of profit.

  Traffic, it is true, was more and more impeded by the barricades that were being erected. Ramparts were made of sandbags, and fascines of barbed wire disposed across the frontier streets. Chinese soldiers in grey uniform untidily occupied strategic positions, Japanese gunmen moved warily into Chapei, and machine-gun classes were conducted on patches of waste ground. But while these preparations for war were being openly made, the greater part of Shanghai was busily pursuing its normal interests. The situation was as incongruous as if a garden suburb had presented its playing-fields and church hall to a batch of homicidal lunatics.

  For two days Juan had observed, with increasing bewilderment, the setting of the stage for tragedy. He found it difficult to understand the necessity for war. It was true that some Chinese had killed a Japanese monk. It was also true that some Japanese had set fire to a Chinese towel factory. But was it worth going to war about the loss of a Buddhist acolyte and some face-cloths? The Chinese, of course, said that the Japanese were secretly installing a garrison of plainclothes gunmen in Chapei; and the Japanese said that the Chinese were surreptitiously massing an army on the outskirts of Chapei. But could not the truth of these charges be ascertained? Chapei was not a hidden city in impenetrable hills or the deserts of Sinkiang. It was a dismal industrial suburb of Shanghai, continuous with Shanghai, as open to investigation as Salford from Manchester, and not unlike Salford in appearance. So far as Juan could discover, the only valid reasons for war were the Chinese refusal to answer the Japanese admiral’s ultimatum – the ultimatum that had demanded love and admiration for Japan and all its works – and Kuo’s decision that China could only be saved by charging with its embattled youth on the invader’s guns and bayonets. She had not so far discovered a proper site for the charge; but Juan had gathered that he was expected to participate in it.

  In the late afternoon Juan was sitting in the overheated lounge of the New Celestial Hotel, pondering these questions, when one of the tallest and the fattest men he had ever seen came in and looked inquiringly through the room. He was red-faced, with an amiable mouth, close-cropped grey hair, blue eyes, and a fine, high-bridged, fleshy nose that supported gold-rimmed spectacles. He stood proudly behind his enormous paunch. It was no mere pudding-basin of a paunch, no petty tumescence or adventitious hummock of fat; it was a rolling down, a Border hill that marched from his broad chest to a broader top, and from there declined steeply, but not without dignity, to the spacious anchorage of an heroic pelvis. It was a truly noble paunch. It was far more than the simple consequence of a hearty appetite. It was a monument to his spirit, and a testimonial to the strength of his back. It was a paunch that made one think not of greed but of grandeur, not of gluttony but of the profusion of earth and the magnanimity of humankind.

  Puffing like a hot harvest-wind over corn, the fat man sat down. But the chair he selected had a fault in it; worm-holes or a dislocation or a greenstick fracture. It collapsed beneath him, and he sat heavily on the floor.

  ‘God in a Flaming Bush!’ he exclaimed, with annoyance indeed, but hardly with surprise. His voice was curiously mild. He looked up at Juan, who came to help him, and said: ‘That’s the forty-third I’ve broken since I started to count the paltry things.’

  A number of people rose and regarded him with curiosity as he sat among the wreckage. ‘Pigmies!’ he exclaimed, but without rancour, and broke a leg of the demolished chair across his knee. ‘Stuff for a doll’s house,’ he remarked.

  ‘Have something to drink,’ Juan suggested.

  White-gowned waiters came to remove the wreckage. ‘Take away the rookery and bring two whiskies and soda,’ said the fat man; and sat more carefully on a sofa.

  He drank his peg as the desert drinks summer rain. ‘Are you going to stay and see the war?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Juan. ‘Are you?’

  ‘And be a target for recruits?’ said the fat man. ‘Not on your life. Any wall-eyed conscript, with his sights rusted at nine hundred, could hit me somewhere. If he allowed a yard for windage on the wrong side, he’d score an outer on my ribs. Machine-gunners would use a swinging traverse against me. I’m too fat to miss and too broad to defend. I’d fill a battalion’s frontage, and need divisional artillery to cover my retreat.’

  ‘So you don’t approve of war?’

  ‘Did I ever say that? Would you refuse to eat a fried egg because you don’t want to lay one?’

  ‘I don’t see the connexion,’ said Juan.

  ‘There are more ways of looking at war than over the parapet of a front-line trench,’ said the fat man. ‘That was how I looked at the last one, and the view was horrible. But others made money out of it, and I’m going to make money out of this one.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Juan, and drank his whisky and soda. For some time they talked inconsequently of Shanghai, the weather, and the catering of various shipping companies. The fat man spoke with a certain rotundity of phrase and richness of allusion that accorded nicely with his figure, and Juan was delighted to have made his acquaintance.

  ‘Have you been long in Shanghai?’ he asked.

  ‘Fourteen years, and this is my last week. I’m going home to a Christian country, to die where I was born, in Gloucestershire.’

  ‘That’s my calf-country.’

  ‘Gloucestershire? What part of it?’

  Juan told him, and the fat man, glowing with a new geniality, smacked him on the leg and exclaimed, ‘There’s no land like it, and we’re the pick of England there. You’ll dine with me tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can…’

  ‘Nonsense. We’ll dine and talk till midnight, canvassing every hedge and village in the county.’

  Juan, however, was more anxious to talk of matters in Shanghai, and presently he asked, ‘Have you ever heard of an American here called Rocco? He’s apparently known as Colonel Rocco.’

  The fat man looked wary. ‘Yes, I know him. A friend of yours?’

  ‘No. But I saw something of him in America.’

  ‘A gunman, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought as much. He was a soldier at one time, a sergeant with the American army in France, and a
bruiser, a prize-ring man, before that. Then he rose in the world and became a gangster, and now he’s ploughing fresh fields in China.’

  ‘I met him the other night. He was with a Japanese called Hikohoki…’

  The fat man was suddenly enraged. ‘Hikohoki?’ he exclaimed. ‘God’s uncle in Hell!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Half my pension’s gone, that’s all. I’ve lost my annuity, I’ve slept in on Maundy Thursday. This war would have been breakfast and dinner and a good roof for my old age; but the roof’s going to leak now.’

  Juan said he was sorry to hear that, but still did not understand.

  Over the benignity of the fat man’s face there passed quick darkness of anger, furious grimaces, like rain-squalls over a broad wood. He muttered and grumbled and swore disjointedly. Fragments of imprecation bubbled softly from his lips; his gentle voice pronounced the disarticulated syllables of curious anathemas. Juan waited for an explanation.

  Presently the fat man said: ‘I’ll tell you the whole story. You know something of Rocco, you come from Gloucestershire, and you look like a man of imagination. You may help me in the tangle I’m in. Now to begin with, there’s a General in Nanking called Wu Tu-fu, with the title of General Commanding the Victorious Division of Ever-Invincible Tanks; and so far he hasn’t any tanks to command. But I have. I’ve four of them, that I bought for twenty thousand Mex, plus six thousand to Hikohoki, who smuggled them in, the jaundicey two-headed tapeworm. At the other end there’s Rocco, who’s bodyguard, and calls himself Military Adviser, to Wu Tu-fu. And Rocco, acting for him, is buying my tanks for a hundred and eight thousand, less twelve thousand commission. But if that rat’s tooth, Hikohoki, has been talking to Rocco, Rocco’s going to cut the price and double his squeeze. For I told him the tanks had cost me eighty thousand; and Hikohoki knows better.’

  ‘But Hikohoki’s a Japanese,’ said Juan, ‘and if the tanks are being sold to a Chinese general

  ‘It’s surprising how commerce broadens the mind. As a matter of fact they were made in Japan, and I don’t think they’re worth much anyhow. But they were going to be a pension for my old age.’

  The fat man sighed prodigiously. ‘My name’s Flanders,’ he said.

  ‘And mine’s Motley.’

  ‘Have a drink.’

  ‘Have it with me,’ said Juan, and called a waiter. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that Hikohoki might be a spy?’

  Flanders shook his head. ‘There’s not enough money in spying.’

  ‘He tried to sell me life insurance. There’s no fortune in that.’

  Flanders scratched his grey head and eased the fork of his trousers. Then he looked slyly at Juan. ‘You’ve given me an idea,’ he said. ‘Rocco’s frightened of the Japanese. He thinks in terms of the Yellow Peril, and believes they spend all their time in plotting and assassination. If we tell him Hikohoki’s a spy, or in the Secret Police, and there’s a plot against his life, he’ll stink with fear.’

  ‘And how will that help?’

  ‘He’ll pay on the nail. He’s coming here this evening, with the money in his pocket. Tell him there’s a deadly, soft-footed, knife-in-a-corner conspiracy against him, and he’ll pay without counting, and get back to Nanking like a terrier going down a drain.’

  It seemed to Juan that Flanders’s confidence was excessive, but he agreed to wait and corroborate the suggested fiction with such details as might occur to him. He had no reason to feel friendly towards Rocco, and the idea of a little tail-twisting was pleasant enough. They had another drink and waited thoughtfully till Rocco should appear.

  His entrance was impressive. He came into the lounge, quick and heavy-shouldered, like a boxer conscious of spectators, and stopped for a moment to look this way and that with the searching gaze of a ham actor in melodrama. Then he caught sight of Flanders and advanced with determination in his gait, and saluted him – an American gesture – with a kind of truculent bonhomie. He had not noticed Juan, but when he saw him he scowled and thrust forward his head, again with rather theatrical vehemence, and his lips twisted to an unfriendly shape as though his mouth were filled with bitterness. ‘Getting around pretty fast, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Sit down and have a drink,’ said Flanders.

  Rocco took off his coat. It was a handsome garment with a red check in it. He wore an olive-green tweed suit, cut in the extreme of New York sporting fashion, with a yellow waistcoat, and a large diamond ring on his little finger. He sat down and made himself comfortable. ‘What’s the dirt?’ he asked.

  ‘Very cold weather,’ said Flanders. ‘I trust you’re keeping your health in this unfriendly climate?’

  ‘I’m getting along pretty good.’

  ‘Excellent. You know Motley, I think?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. I thought you’d be pleased to see an old friend; that’s all. But perhaps you prefer business to amicable chitchat. Well, have you brought the money, Rocco?’

  ‘Yeah. If you want to talk turkey, I’m with you, Major Flanders. But not before a stranger, see?’

  ‘Oh, come. Motley’s no stranger. He’s a mutual friend.’

  ‘Well, now I know.’

  ‘Have you seen anything more of Hikohoki?’ said Juan.

  ‘And what if I have?’

  ‘You ought to be careful. He’s one of the most dangerous men in Shanghai.’

  ‘You’re crazy. I’ve seen plenty of these Japs, and I don’t like ‘em. But Hikohoki’s on the level.’

  Juan looked at Flanders. ‘He’s stubborn,’ he said.

  ‘Tell him what you know.’

  ‘Hikohoki’s in the Secret Police,’ said Juan.

  ‘That’s a lie!’

  Flanders shrugged his enormous shoulders. ‘Well, if you won’t take a warning, I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘We’d better talk finance.’

  ‘I told you already: not before a third party.’

  ‘He knows everything,’ said Flanders. ‘He’s a Government man. Counter-espionage. It was he who told me about Hikohoki.’

  Juan concealed his surprise at this unexpected announcement, which was more than he had bargained for. But he had a talent for acquiescence …There are people whose temper expresses itself naturally in No, that graceless and obstructionary plug of a word; and there are others whose eager nature must always find release in the runnel of a fluent Yes. – Negative and affirmative created He them. – And because No will timeously stop a leak, they that use it see nothing but virtue in it, forgetting that what will prevent wine from running out, must also withhold men from drinking. But Yes, that wasteful syllable, that running tap of a word, will carry those who utter it, as if on a pleasant stream, through rich and various country. It is a bridge that leaps over stagnation, a sky-sail to catch wind in the doldrums. It is a passport to adventure, birdlime for experience, a knife for the great oyster of the world and the pearls or the poison that hide within. Yes is the lover’s word, for peril and for bliss, and No the miser’s and the word the barren womb has said. The trumpet sounding for the charge cries Yes; and the key in the rusty lock squeaks No. They are an opening or a shutting; creation or criticism; life – or in all probability a very much longer life. Juan said Yes by nature, and had in consequence enjoyed many delightful experiences and several disastrous ones. Now, having rapidly adjusted himself to the situation, he decided to accept the role that Flanders offered him. He found sufficient reason for this decision in his liking for the fat Major, and his lack of liking for Rocco. He assumed an expression – or so he judged – of inscrutable omniscience, and with his finger-tips tapped on the table-top a sinister little rhythm.

  Rocco corrugated his narrow forehead and stared suspiciously at Juan, at Flanders, and again at Juan. ‘You’re trying to double-cross me,’ he said.

  ‘What did Hikohoki tell you?’ asked Juan.

  ‘He told me plenty.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Flanders, ‘we’ll have no
more gossip-mongering. How about the muniments of war? Have you the money for them, Rocco?’

  ‘Yes and no, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘No, but I smell it,’ said Flanders. ‘There’s an odour of double-dealing, a little stink of tergiversation, in that out-of-step conjunction. You’re trying to go back on your bargain, eh?’

  ‘Now be your age, Major. There’s no use running around with your pants on fire. You’ve got certain goods, and I’m prepared to buy them; but only if the price is reasonable. And I’ve been hearing things, see? I’ve heard what you paid for the goods, and it wasn’t the same as what you told me by a long way. There was so big a difference between those figures they’d need a suspension bridge to join them. So I’m just knocking thirty grand off my previous offer.’

  ‘And that’s the tale that Hikohoki told you? What squeeze do you pay him? What’s his cumshaw? And when does he spring the trap on you?’

  ‘There’s isn’t no good talking like that, Major. It won’t get you nowhere, and when I’m trying to figure out a fair price…’

  There was a lady who wished to speak to him on the telephone, said an ivory-yellow waiter to Juan. He left the disputants – Flanders leaning sideways towards Rocco, like a red moon gibbous on the edge of a cloud; Rocco watching with a boxer’s eyes – and in the telephone-booth heard Kuo Kuo’s voice. She was going to Nanking, she said. She was going at once, and she would not be back for two or three days. She was speaking from Min Cho-fu’s house. No, Juan could not see her before she went, and she would not tell him why she must go with such precipitation to the capital. Her mission was important, of course. Perhaps there was going to be a change in their plans. They had decided to postpone the attack. The Conquering Youth of China would not, for the present at any rate, be asked to sacrifice themselves upon the guns. But the alternative plan was too important to discuss. Juan protested, said he would come with her. Kuo Kuo would not listen. They argued, and their voices met in sharp little waves, like conflicting tides. Then Kuo rang off, and Juan, suddenly unhappy and with anger for a core to his unhappiness, went back to the lounge and stood for a moment to look at the idlers who drank and did not know the bitterness of love. He wanted revenge, irrelevant but quick revenge, for the bruise the telephone had dealt him. He returned to Flanders and Rocco, and found them still arguing. But Rocco was clearly worried.