But Western civilization had not wholly destroyed the native life of China. Even in the busiest areas it stubbornly persisted, for at the corner of a modern street would be a dirty little eating-place, with steam rising from two cauldrons, a plate of pale anonymous food, another of brown bean-curd, or stinking fish; while back-to-back with office buildings would be a bright display of joss-papers and silver tissue money for the dead. – So in many parts of London there was the remnant of an ancient hedge or a drooping untidy tree, the last relics of some village that the great town had swallowed. – They passed a temple whose courtyard was crowded with refugees, and came into narrower streets and a poorer neighbourhood. They were stopped and questioned by soldiers at a cross-roads guarded on all sides by ramparts of sandbags and barbed wire.
Under a sky like dirty wool, over rougher roads and between squalid buildings, they approached a group of cotton-mills and a flithy hamlet of wattled huts. These wretched buildings, their walls of dark matting daubed with mud – built on the mud and fluttering in every wind – were crowded with dark-clad coolies and children half-naked, half patched in rags. A little farther on was a bend of the Soochow Creek, muddy-sided, spanned by a rickety bridge. They crossed and looked down at two sampans, matting-roofed, in which were half a dozen fat red-faced boatmen and their families. The road grew worse, and the wheels of the car churned loosely in the mud.
‘We’ll have to get out and walk,’ said Harris. ‘It’s lucky the rain has stopped.’
They walked for about a mile, Flanders complaining volubly of the heavy going, and came in sight of what seemed to be a small and well-fenced plantation of young trees. It was ostentatiously guarded, on the side they were approaching, by numerous sentries and two machine-gun posts.
‘Sun Sat-lo’s a bit of an aesthete,’ said Harris. ‘That’s why he’s chosen a nursery for his headquarters. It’s several miles behind the line, and that’s another advantage. We’ll probably find him talking to the gardener about conifers and cryptomerias. You and Flanders had better have cards, by the way.’
He took out his well-filled pocket-book, and selecting two visiting-cards gave them to Juan and Flanders.
‘You’re the Manchester Guardian,’ he said to Juan, ‘and Flanders is the Christian Science Monitor.’
They were halted by a sentry, to whom Harris showed his pass, and after some delay they were admitted to the nursery. A little breeze sprang up as they entered, and rattling the orderly thickets of young trees, blew from their stiff leaves a miniature storm of gathered rain-drops. As Harris had guessed, General Sun Sat-lo was talking to the gardener, a shrivelled old fellow in a long blue gown, and with them was a tall soldierly man, rigid of carriage, smoking a cigarette in a long holder. A little distance away, mute and decorous, was a group of eight or ten staff officers.
‘That’s Tsai Ting-kai, who commands the 19th Route Army,’ said Harris. ‘There must be something important going to happen.’
General Sun Sat-lo was a tall thin man with a scholar’s face and abstracted expression. He was well-dressed, and distinguished by a thin black moustache that drooped slightly beyond the corners of his mouth. Juan found it difficult to believe that this was the ardent visitor to the maison à gros numéro in the Rue des Andouilles of whom he had heard from Masha and Varya.
Sun Sat-lo greeted them cordially, and apologized through the interpreter for his inability to speak English.
‘I have been receiving instruction in the training of youth,’ he said, and pointed to a small stone-pine whose branches, twisted round with wire and pegged to the earth with fifty strings, were being taught to grow in a certain pattern. ‘Nowadays,’ he added with a pleasant smile, ‘gardeners are the only people in China who can command obedience.’
‘They have certain advantages,’ said Harris. ‘They aren’t troubled by doubt, and they know that the proper thing for a tree is to be ornamental.’
‘Whereas the leader of men has innumerable difficulties, since the better kind of man is not like a vessel designed for a single purpose,’ said the General.
Harris replied, ‘There are three hundred odes, but they all teach the same lesson: avoid evil thoughts.’
Again the General smiled. ‘If we tire of discussing the war,’ he said, ‘I see that we can amuse ourselves by talking of sylviculture and Confucius.’
He took Harris by the arm and led him into the main room of the gardener’s house. This was a long bare apartment, furnished for military occupation with a couple of trestle tables, a chair or two, some benches, a stove in one corner, and maps on the wall. Beside one of the tables stood a plump and disconsolate officer in shabby uniform, whose wrists were manacled; two soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets; and another officer, bespectacled, untidy, and fat. General Sat-lo sat down, and lifting a file of papers from the table read what was evidently a report of the prisoner’s misconduct. He asked a question, to which the prisoner unhappily replied, and on another document inscribed his signature. The prisoner was led out.
Harris’s interpreter whispered discreetly, ‘He stole five telescopes and tried to desert, but they caught him and he is going to be shot.’
General Tsai Ting-kai, standing by the stove in the corner, had paid no attention to this brief episode. As soon as the prisoner and his escort had gone, he exchanged a few brusque sentences with Sun Sat-lo, and left. Thereupon Sun, in the friendliest mamier, told Harris that he was now at his service, and Harris began to ask a number of questions about the disposition of forces, the unity of the Chinese command, its relation to Nanking, and the prospect of restricting hostilities to their present area. Sun Sat-lo was by turns disarmingly frank and blandly non-committal; he had taken a liking to Harris, and the interview promised to be a long one.
Juan and Flanders, as representatives of the Manchester Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor, pretended to pay close attention to this laboriously interpreted conversation; but Flanders grew more and more restless, and Juan’s mind also began to wander.
Before coming into the house Flanders had managed to drink a surreptitious mouthful from the bottle of brandy with which he had thoughtfully provided himself, but his tongue was dry again, and his heart was again doubtful. Two or three times, when he heard footsteps outside, he looked quickly over his shoulder and nerved himself to encounter Rocco and Wu Tu-fu. He frowned and muttered; but Juan took no notice of him, for he was looking with great interest at the maps with which the opposite wall was lavishly decorated.
Immediately in front of him was an Admiralty chart of Hong Kong. Unfortunately it was upside down. On one side of it was a large map of Brighton and Hove, on the other a pictorial plan, torn from a guide-book, of America’s Golden West. Unless Sun Sat-lo and the Generals associated with him were bent on world conquest, it was difficult to perceive any relevance in this strange assortment of cartography; but possibly the maps served to impress the General’s less sophisticated colleagues, and perhaps they helped him to maintain a useful sense of proportion.
While Juan was still pondering the contingent effect of Brighton and Hove on Chinese strategy, there was a loud-voiced commotion outside, the door was thrown open, and in stumped a bulky figure in British uniform, gorgeous with medal-ribbons and red Staff tabs, who, having hoarsely shouted ‘General Wu Tu-fu!’ came noisily to the salute.
General Wu Tu-fu was a plump smiling little man who came in very neatly and quietly, and from his expression appeared to think that he had made rather a good joke by sending Colonel Rocco to announce him. He was followed by a staff as numerous as Sun’s, and the room grew somewhat crowded. He greeted Sun Sat-lo, and immediately began a very animated discussion.
Rocco, meanwhile, had caught sight of Flanders. His right arm lost its rigidity, but for a long time, as though he had forgotten all about it, remained in the saluting position; and his mouth opened like a burst plum. He was a striking figure in his Staff Officer’s uniform. His service cap, with its heavily gilded peak, was perhaps a litt
le too big for him – it appeared to lean heavily on his rather prominent ears and to a critical eye the primrose hue of his generously cut breeches might have seemed unnecessarily bright. But his mahogany-tinted boots were magnificent, and his tunic was cut with the opulence that is permitted only to officers of exalted rank. His two rows of medal ribbons were handsome enough for anyone, and his Sam Browne belt, with double shoulder-straps, impressively supported a holster at each side. Not for nothing had he learnt gun-play in America.
When he had recovered something of his composure, he used his right hand – still loosely saluting – to scratch his protruding ear, and assuming a smile of ghastly geniality tiptoed creakily towards Flanders.
‘Well, for Christ’s sake!’ he whispered. ‘Say, I never thought I’d see you out here. How’s every little thing?’
Huge, red-faced, and menacing – but with a wary glance at Wu Tu-fu – Flanders muttered fiercely, ‘Come outside!’
‘Why, Major, there’s nothing I’d like better. But I’m in attendance on the Big Shot, and he may want me any time.’
‘You’re a cockatrice!’
‘Now keep it clean, Major.’
‘You’re a thief and a swindler and a cart-horse dressed up like a three-hundred-guinea hunter!’
‘Ah, quit riding me. I don’t understand what you’re talking about anyway.’
‘Then come outside where we can speak plainly.’
Rocco shook his head, and whispered, ‘I tell you, it can’t be done. I’m indispensable, see? The Big Boy would never forgive me if I left him to handle a conference alone.’
‘What do you think he’ll say when I show him these bogus notes you gave me?’
‘Bogus notes? Now you sure have got me guessing, Major. I don’t know what you mean by bogus notes.’
Flanders thrust his hand into an inner pocket and pulled out the thick packet of worthless paper for which he had sold his four tanks.
‘Look at that,’ he muttered. ‘As false and counterfeit as the ribbons on your tunic.’
‘Put it away,’ hissed Rocco. ‘You don’t want to interfere with the course of the conference, do you?’
‘I’ll interfere with the whole course of Asia unless you come out and talk as man to man with me.’
The sight of Rocco’s embarrassment had filled Flanders with confidence, and the strain of talking in a whisper had made his face uncommonly red. Peremptory, flushed, and inflated, he was an impressive figure, and Rocco’s resistance collapsed.
‘It’s irregular,’ he grumbled, ‘but I’ll do anything to save trouble and oblige a friend. We’ll slip out quietly, see?’
With heavy but careful movements Rocco tiptoed to the door, and Flanders with elephantine caution followed him. None of the Chinese paid any attention, but Harris whispered to Juan, ‘Do you want to go with them?’
‘Better leave them alone,’ answered Juan. ‘They’ll come to terms more easily if they’ve no opportunity for showing-off.’
Harris nodded, and beckoned Juan into a corner. ‘You understand what’s been happening?’ he asked. ‘The Japanese threw out a salient from Hongkew, and developed a new attack from there. That means they’ve pushed their front well out into open country, and they’ve moved forward from the extension, which is their right wing.Yesterday, they captured a village called Nanyang – there was no opposition – and dug themselves in on a line south-west of it. They’re holding that line in strength, and preparing to advance again. But Sun Sat-lo wants to attack at once and drive them back from the Nanyang line.’
‘Using Wu Tu-fu’s tanks, I suppose?’ said Juan.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘I hope Flanders gets paid for them first.’
‘It was Flanders who sold them, was it? I guessed as much. But where did he get them?’
‘They were built in Japan and smuggled into Shanghai by a little man called Hikohoki. We met him, you remember, in Chapei the night the war started, and I’ve had quite a lot to do with him since then.’
‘You’ve got mixed up with some queer people, haven’t you?’
‘They’re all right.’
A moment or two later Harris asked, ‘Is that Flanders’s voice or Rocco’s?’
From somewhere in the garden had come an agonized bellow, twice repeated. A bellow with a dying fall, at first enormous and rotund, but dwindling to a faint flute-like note of pain. It startled the two generals, their aides and other officers, who rose with questioning glances and hurried to the door, whither Harris and Juan preceded them.
About fifty yards away, on a broad grassy path between two groves of youngling trees, was a group of soldiers who watched with great enjoyment a spectacle of some brutality. Colonel Rocco, his face almost black with congested blood, lay helpless on the ground while Flanders sat astride of him, and, as though riding a horse, jogged up and down with a precise and regular motion. At each descent a sound of anguish came from Rocco’s purple lips, but now no louder than a little whistling groan; for there was no breath left in his body.
‘That sort of thing must be very bad for discipline,’ said Juan.
‘Very bad indeed,’ said Harris, and pushed one of the soldiers aside to get a better view.
But the two Chinese generals, attracted by the unusual nature of the spectacle, were apparently blind to its subversive nature, and they also became interested spectators.
‘Who is the very fat man?’ asked General Wu. ‘And why is he riding upon my Military Adviser?’
‘I am told he is the representative of the Christian Science Monitor,’ answered General Sun, ‘but the reason for his riding upon Colonel Rocco I do not know. From his silence, however, and his great activity, I infer he is familiar with the Confucian precept, that the Superior Person is modest in speech but liberal in performance.’
Chapter 20
Nothing but exhaustion – the exhaustion of Flanders – saved Rocco from a humiliating death. Flanders rode him till he was almost as breathless as his victim, and when at last he got up, Rocco lay comatose and visibly flattened. He was carried inside, his clothes were loosened, and Juan, having borrowed Flanders’s brandy, poured restorative doses down his unresisting throat. Rocco did not immediately recognize him, but the first flicker of returning consciousness brought recognition of the bottle, which he seized with tremulous hands and would not release.
General Wu Tu-fu, in the meantime, had politely inquired in what circumstances and for what reason Flanders had so curiously assaulted his Military Adviser; and Flanders, seizing the chance to tell his story without interruption from Rocco, explained that it was he who had procured the four tanks which General Wu now commanded. He had had great difficulty in getting them – they were made in Japan and but for his influence with the Japanese he could never had done it. And then, after all his expense of time and money and trouble, Rocco, by means of counterfeit money, had swindled him out of the agreed price. He produced the fraudulent notes, which the generals examined with interest.
‘So to relieve your feelings you knocked him down and sat on him?’ suggested Wu.
‘I knocked him down – or rather I took him round the neck and leant my weight on him, so that he fell – because he denied that these were the notes he gave me. He said he had given me good money, and I was using this spurious paper to get a double price.’
‘And is that suggestion true or false?’
‘As false as fortune-telling. My friend Motley will tell you I was going home, my passage booked, and I might have been half-way there by now. But the money I was to live on lost colour, my fortune ran out through a hole in the bucket, and I had to stay in Shanghai like a ship on a reef. Poverty I plead guilty to, but neither falsehood nor larceny.’
‘You are not, however, the correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor?’
‘No.’
‘And is your friend Mr Motley a genuine representative of the Manchester Guardian?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Juan, ‘but I w
as very anxious to see something of the war…
‘Are you going to try and sell aeroplanes to me? No? Then that is all right. I am pestered by people who want me to buy aeroplanes. It used to be missionaries who worried me, but they were not nearly so difficult. One could always get rid of them by consenting to be baptized – I have been baptized at least five times – but the aeroplane-sellers are much more persistent.’
Despite the humiliation of his Military Adviser and the disclosure of his criminal behaviour, General Wu’s demeanour was as calmly genial as when he had first appeared. He spoke perfect English, with a slightly metallic tone, and his round face, which was quite hairless except for a few almost invisible bristles where his eyebrows should have been, wore constantly an expression of benign amusement. General Sun, having learnt from the interpreter the nature of the dispute, had shrugged his shoulders, and seating himself at a table began to write, in beautiful square characters of the kind known as Li, a brief poem on the mutability of the human heart. His G.S.O.I., D.A.D.M.S., D.A.Q.M.G., and A.P.M. – or their Chinese equivalents watched him with serious and silent admiration.
Rocco had by now sufficiently recovered to sit up, but his face had the mottled appearance of a piece of brawn, and his eyes were dazed like a sleep-walker’s. He shuddered and took another long swig from Flanders’s bottle of brandy, and shuddered again. Then, apparently with a memory of his old days in the ring at the Garden, he staggered across the room and, taking Flanders warmly by the fist, exclaimed: ‘It was a swell fight. Tell ‘em I enjoyed every minute of it.’
Juan in China Page 24