Arthur Reed’s thin precise lips compressed tightly. His tongue-tip snaked out twice like snake fangs. His right hand twisted the West Point ring on his left hand nervously, his eyes focused on the chewed-up unlit cigar in the General’s hand: “General, is this a threat? Are you, a general officer, actually trying to … to …”
“Blackmail you? No. I’m afraid that’s not in my line. Con has the documents. He has given one to the Englishman, Mountbatten’s cousin. We’ve made every effort to recover it but I’m afraid Con’s the only one that has the influence to do that. And besides that document he has several more safely hidden,” Mike O’Hanlon said gleefully. “And, besides, the boy has influence. You may consider me part of that influence. Further, I have informed Washington, in detail, of the entire incident. You, Colonel Reed, have been a part of an attempt to perpetuate a fraud, through suppression of facts, to the American public. Further, you would place a stigma upon a young man for his entire life in the interest of that fraud. I have proof in the form of this recommendation you sent to Delhi,” Mike said patting his breast pocket. “I will give you until tomorrow morning to inform your superiors. I will give you until noon to be off this post. And, I might add, in the interest of the people I will personally see that you never hold a responsible position in the United States Army again. And you may inform your Major Alofson that I intend to have Con examined further by unbiased, impartial, medical men and the reports, if contradictory to Major Alofson’s, presented to the American Medical Association along with the facts,” the General said putting the unlit cigar in his mouth. He stomped over and opened the office door. “Let’s go, Pearson,” he commanded.
“You wish my preshunce also,” General Chao asked.
The heavily-jowled, stocky little General tilted his head like an inquisitive bulldog. The cigar twisted upward in his mouth. He removed it. “You go to hell,” he said caustically to the Chinese.
He turned to the now open-mouthed Pearson: “Let’s go, Ray,” he said cockily.
Ray Pearson came out from behind his desk. He was blushing and grinning all at once.
The Chinese was on his feet: “I am honarable represensashive.…”
They slammed the door in his face. Arthur Reed was not in the hallway.
The General and Colonel Pearson had dinner alone. The Colonel returned to his offices immediately after dinner to catch up on his work. The General had Con brought to his quarters. He sat in his chair near his bed and they had a long talk in which the General explained the pertinent facts as they had transpired:
“So you see, Con a good deal of the fault lays with you. In your handling of it. You could only see so far. I venture to say that if it hadn’t been for my presence you wouldn’t have fared well at all. More than anyone you needed an ally. The one potential ally you had, initially, was Ray Pearson. You got mighty sore at him because you felt that he didn’t understand what you were talking about. So, if you really want to get down to it, you got sore at him for the same reason he got sore at you. He didn’t think you understood what you were talking about. You never considered his reasons. In other words, your vision was limited. If you had considered the habits, the attitudes, the restrictions of vision placed on him by the Army in which he serves I’m sure you would never have told him the things that you did. You see, in this case, it was up to you to understand his position. Do you understand now?” the General said speaking softly.
“I understand,” Con said. “I’ll make a public apology of those wires I sent. And a personal apology of what I said to him in the cottage. I appreciate your efforts, General. All the way around.”
“I did nothing for you, son,” the General said. “I had other reasons. As you had reasons for putting yourself on the carpet. What are you going to do after the war?”
“You tell me,” Con grinned. “That’s a long way off, anyhow.”
“Not as long as you may think,” the General said.
Con was staring at the shrapnel scars on the General’s heavily muscled bull legs under the purple bathrobe. The General stood up. Con took one more obvious glance at the legs and laughed: “I’ll go see Pearson now,” he said. “I think I know now why you made a million bucks.”
General O’Hanlon grinned and they shook hands. “Keep in touch with me,” he said. Con left.
The General went over to his tabledesk. He scribbled a message to be radioed to his personal plane pilot in Calcutta:
Clear for Cairo late tomorrow.
He opened up his brief case. He sighed and laid the Yugoslavian guerrilla report on the desk. American guerrillas assigned to Mikhailovich and Tito were engaged in pitched battle within the confines of that occupied country. On three different occasions Americans were suspected of murdering Americans. Now that was a real mess.
Whose mother was it that said to be sure and look up her son? Oh yes, Mrs. Niven from Newport. How was he doing? Jesus Christ, message bearer, nurse-maid, arbitrator, diplomat, and first class son-of-a-bitch always. General officer … Poof.
He turned the page and began to read, the unlit cigar twitching in his mouth.
CHAPTER XLIII
Con had stopped by the Colonel’s office and made his apologies. For some reason, though they had both been eager, it had not gone off too well. There was a cavity of restraint between them as if no possible explanation would ever refill the void of their one lack of faith in each other. Reluctantly, they both knew that things would never be the same between them again. It was, in a way, akin to a marriage in which one of the parties had been unfaithful. Nothing could obliterate the act.
The meeting hadn’t lasted long. Before Con left the Colonel handed him a message: Danny had completed an airstrip and would be flown into the base in the morning.
Con raced the jeep out onto the base airfield as the wheels of the small plane touched the runway. He raced side by side under the wing of the small plane until it came to a stop.
Danny jumped out. He had on British combat shorts, jungle boots and was barechested with two bandoliers criss-crossed over his chest. Underneath his left arm hung his jeweled scabbard dah. And from his cartridge belt and bandoliers hung at least twelve grenades, a Kukri knife, a Fairbairn knife, a Japanese dagger, three canteens, a .45 on his right hip, a .32 on his left hip, and clutched in his right arm was a Thompson submachine-gun. His bush hat hung back of his oversized head revealing his shaven head shining in the sunlight, his monocle reflecting in the sunlight, the big black moustaches heavily waxed. Con grinned widely thinking he looked a fugitive from Pancho Villa’s forces.
“You’ll need a crane to get into the jeep.” Con said.
“My God, but how did you ever get so clean,” Danny said as he climbed into the jeep.
They drove down the road and parked in the shade of a large banyan tree. Carefully, in detail, Con explained the Lewje Incident. “So I told them I had sent you one of the documents. I don’t know why I lied but I did. And it was damn fortunate I did.”
“They think I have one of the documents then. And they think I’d use it even though you’d supposedly entrusted it to me.”
“They think that I might be able to talk you out of it. That’s why you’re here. I wonder what Pearson’s going to say when he finds out that you’ve never had the documents to begin with.”
“I’ll enjoy that,” Danny mused. “But that’s the remarkable thing about Americans. To all Americans an Englishman is an Englishman. They don’t consider that we have types as you have types. That we have farmers, and barristers, barmaids and ladies just as you have your various social levels. They don’t consider that I’m not the type to sell you out. Not, of course, that we wouldn’t like to have the documents. We would, very much. But we have people who deal in such things. Naturally if you feel free to pass on policy to me without restriction I feel free to report it. And it’s my duty. You’d do the same, y’know. But we wouldn’t put a burden like that on a chap like myself. Why I might get so involved in such subversive activi
ties that I’d ruin a career that would be, in the long run, more of a benefit to my government.
“I don’t doubt for one minute, for example, that our agents bid against Japanese agents for the scrap paper in the wastebaskets of your various headquarters. You can get a lot of information out of a waste basket, Con. But I’m not the type to do such a thing. My government wouldn’t ask it of me, wouldn’t expect me to succumb to a demand for these documents even if I had them. Do you see? And what amuses me, always has amused, even astounds me, is that you Americans for all your industrial know-how, for all your economic skillfulness, for all your inventiveness, remain diplomatically stupid and ignorant in the ways of your closest international friend; a country to which you have had free access for years,” Danny said laughing as if to himself. “And as always out of ignorance springs suspicion. Mistaking, for example, the fact that we are and always will be well informed, mistaking that for a diplomatic intuitiveness, or cleverness, or trickiness … I should like to meet this General O’Hanlon who considers me such a monster.”
“He left this morning. And it’s probably just as well. I think you might have met your match with him,” Con said starting the jeep.
They took off wide open, spilling up thick dust clouds, skidding corners towards the cottage. They arrived in record time almost colliding with a supply truck enroute. They went inside.
“Did you peel your feet today, old man?” Danny asked as they entered the cottage.
“Yesterday,” Con said.
“God! You must really be rotten. I shall have to peel my feet if I bathe, y’know.”
“We could do it outside. Suppose we have some drinks and lunch. Then we can go outside and peel your feet.”
“Good idea,” Danny said sniffing around. “Nice billet.”
“Ratha,” Con kidded.
Danny began dropping his gear onto a chair. Con poured them a drink. He set the glass aside after he poured and took the scotch bottle and went around the livingroom sprinkling scotch on the floor and walls.
“If that Dewar’s can get rid of the smell of your feet I swear I’ll never drink any other brand,” Danny said.
The had their drinks moving towards the bedroom. Con called for the bearer, that the Colonel had that morning assigned to the cottage, to run Danny a tub. The Englishman began to strip. Con noticed that his right buttocks was swollen all black and blue.
“What happened to your ass?” Con asked concernedly staring at it.
“I got grazed a couple weeks ago. Nothing really … flesh wound.”
“I didn’t see anything about you getting shot in the ass in the General Activity Report.”
“Really, there wasn’t much sense in reporting it. And besides,” Danny grinned pixieishly, “I consider it rather embarrassing. For ten days I couldn’t sit down. It was lie down or stand.”
Con grinned still staring at Danny’s swollen purple ass.
Danny took his bath while Con saw that the bearer got the proper lunch. Danny came into the living room in shorts scrubbed whitely clean, monocle in place, his bare feet a soggy, spongy rotten white.
“Feel better?” Con asked.
“It doesn’t make any difference whether you’re real clean or real dirty, I say. It’s the in-between that makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’ll go along with that.”
They had lunch of cold chicken, potato salad, and two cans of cold Pabst beer each. When they finished they decided to go outside in the sun on the lawn and talk while Danny peeled his feet. As they walked out the cottage door Con was putting a small piece of dessert cake into his mouth. A bird, wingspread three feet, swept out of the sky snatching the cake from his mouth and his grasp and slightly brushing his head with its wing. Con ducked belatedly, startled: “I forgot about those bastards.”
They laid a sheet down on the lawn and Danny began to peel his feet. As he would discard a strip of the dead skin one of the now twelve or fifteen circling birds would swoop low and snatch it, only to have the other birds attempt to squawkingly steal it in mid-flight. Danny was watching three of them flay at each other in the air: “Frightful racket, isn’t it?”
“God but they have ugly mouths; red as blood.”
“Yet there would be no India without birds to eat its dead waste. India would perish in one infectious plague without them,” Danny said as if his mind were really somewhere else. “But to get back to this Lewje business, Con. I’m really not at all surprised at what you found there. The odd thing is now that your government has refused to apologize you won’t hear another word out of the Chinese. You watch. They’ll act like it never happened. And if your people begin to press them about the slaying of American soldiers they won’t know what you’re talking about. That’s the way they work. That’s why we gave up on Kai-shek a long time ago. That’s why your Stilwell wanted to go with Mao and the Commies. Stilwell had vision there. Do you know the Stilwell plan?”
“I don’t know a damn thing about anything when it comes to the Chinese,” Con said. “Though I must say I’ve learned a lot in the past few weeks.”
“Well, let me give you the picture. It should interest you. No doubt it will add to your confusion,” Danny said. “As everyone knows, Stilwell and Kai-shek didn’t get along. China, Stilwell felt, was not furnishing anything near their potential in the war against Japan. Kai-shek was so worried about Mao that many of the supplies that the U.S. was sending to Kai-shek to fight the Japanese he’s been using to fight Mao and the Commies, or saving those supplies to fight him later. Well Stilwell knew quite a bit about Mao. It seems to be the fad in this war to fight side by side with the Commies. He wanted to get Mao to join forces with Kai-shek and fight the Japanese and settle their own differences later. Stilwell knew that Mao was running a clean government, damn clean by Chinese standards, and that he had the basis of a good army. Why did he know that Mao had the basis of a good army? Well, and this may come as quite a surprise to you, Mao’s army, the basis of it, was initially trained by U.S. First Marines. Their basic weapon is the Springfield rifle.…
“Now Mao is fighting Chiang whose basic weapon is the Springfield rifle also. And Chiang and Mao are fighting the Japanese whose basic weapon is American steel. And the English whose basic money and supplies are American are fighting the Japanese. And the Russians, who are basically supplied by the Americans, besides being against the Japanese are on the side of Mao fighting Kai-shek because Mao is a Commie. So the Russians who are fighting with you are also fighting against you. And the Chinese you are fighting with are fighting not only with each other but with the Japanese whom you are fighting against,” Danny said with that silly pixyish grin, peeling away at his feet. “You had an author in America, Sherwood his name was, that wrote a play about war called Idiot’s Delight. Actually, I wonder if he even knew how appropriate was his title.
“Well, anyhow, Stilwell wanted Kai-shek and Mao to get together. His plan was that both forces be placed under American command. Mao agreed but Kai-shek refused. The English government believes it would have been wise. And for this reason: When you have military command of a State as is the Chinese Communist State you have Government of the State. Because the State is basically not a Communist State but a Police or Military state. So when you have military command you have governmental command. We believe Stilwell saw this, knew that by having the Commies under his command that he could see that they didn’t get too big after the war. Because Stilwell is definitely anti-Commie and, we the British believe, that was one of the main reasons for his seeking their help: to get their control. Further, by having the Commies under his command, he could force the Kai-shek government to move, to actually wage war against the Japanese instead of procrastinating as they have been doing.
“Well, Stilwell got to Mao, Kai-shek heard about it, spoke to Roosevelt and that was the end of that. Now, and just to add to the contradiction of Kai-shek, did you know that he has a son that is studying in Moscow? That Kai-shek’s son sits side by side i
n school everyday with high members of Mao’s Communist trainees that are studying in Moscow also. And further, Chiang’s son, favorite number one son had married a Russian Communist woman.… Now don’t ask me what that means,” Danny chuckled. “Because I wouldn’t have the slightest idea. But one thing is apparent: your government is taking a bloody beating every way you turn. And, this is my own opinion, I believe that some day the whole world will suffer from your failure to back General Stilwell. Very much, Con, in the same way that America has suffered from its persecution of Flight Officer Billy Mitchell.”
There were about fifty birds in the air now, squawking and cackling and occasionally crapping and the sun was beating down with a tropical rhythm. Con wiped his perspiring forehead with the back of his hand. He scratched his itchy goatee thoughtfully.
“It seems so … so goddamn silly. So futile. Hell, I can’t understand it. And it’s hard for me to believe that anyone can. I only know what I know from this last week, Danny. Kai-shek is lice. And when you hang around lice you get dirty. You can’t help it.”
Danny grinned. “I’m done,” he said tearing off one final strip of dead skin. He held it up. A bird swooped snatching it. “Let’s go inside, it’s too bloody hot out here.”
They got up. Danny shook out the sheet. He wrapped it around him Hindu fashion, one shoulder exposed. Con watched him as he walked over to a tulip bed. Carefully he chose a perfectly formed purple flower and broke it off. He took it inside, poured a glass of water, set the tulip in the water, the glass on the table stand. He sat down. Con poured the scotch into the foot-pan and brought it over. Danny put his feet into the pan the sheet still wrapped around him, the fan clicking slowly over his head:
“Now, old man, let me tell thee what happened to we and thee and the Chinee this week.… I had my troubles. Odd that we should both have them the same week, then again not so odd. Well, as you know, I was running ahead of the Chinese Regular forces going down the Road. Scouting and in a way protecting their right flank. They made a sudden push. I was held up for an airdrop and their front lines paralleled my rear guard. The American advisor wanted to see me so I started for their headquarters with a small patrol. Enroute I came across first one, then another Kachin village completely evacuated. We couldn’t locate one member of either of those villages for half a day. Then we came across a group hidden in the jungle. A Battalion of Chinese Regulars had been in the area. Some of their patrols had gone into the villages, sacked them, and carried off some of the women. Naturally I was at loss for an explanation. I took off and located the American division and the Chinese commander. They sent out inquiries. They said that I must be mistaken that they didn’t have any patrols in the area. I tried the only two other units around. They refused to admit that the troops were theirs, so I did the only thing I could; ordered all the Kachin villages in the area evacuated until the troops cleared through.”
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