‘Someone’s busted the Longhorn,’ Sammy said at once, the disgust plain in his voice.
The Peugeot detached itself from the group and came towards them. Ellie climbed out, her face flushed and guilty and curiously diffident in front of Ira.
‘I guess we’ve lost the Longhorn,’ she said at once. ‘Sung landed it in the ditch. Lawn says it’s a write-off.’
‘How’s Sung?’
‘He walked away from it. I’m sorry, Ira.’
For a moment there was silence, because the old Farman had served them well, then Ira glanced at Sammy and grinned.
‘Any landing you can walk away from’s a good landing,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a damn. We’ve got a better machine now than any Longhorn and it belongs to us, not Tsu.’
Sammy had climbed out of the lorry and was throwing ropes and timber and tackles into the back with the wheels they’d bought from De Sa months before. As Ellie stared at him, bewildered, he swung round, grinning.
‘The two-seater Ira forced down yesterday, El,’ he said. ‘We can repair it.’
Excitement flared in her eyes. ‘Honest?’
Ira grinned. ‘Honest. And Tsu’s too busy in the east to worry about us and very happy because Kwei’s on the run. We’ve got the whole winter to get it flying and only five pupils to worry about.’
‘Four,’ she corrected. ‘Sung decided he’d rather go back to being an infantryman. He left an hour ago on Cheng’s bicycle.’
Ira grinned again, in no mood to quibble about losses. ‘Let’s call it three, because Cheng’s on his own now, and we’ve got to salvage that De Havilland before those thieves of Tsu’s strip it for firewood.’
As he began to grab for tools and cooking implements, Ellie swung round and dived for the farm building.
‘Hold your goddam hosses,’ she said. ‘I’m coming with you!’
* * *
As they headed east again, Heloïse clanking behind the lorry, they began to pass a straggling column of troops on the march towards Hwai-Yang, ill-clad and carrying unfamiliar banners and umbrellas, and wearing everything from spats and boaters to furs, shabby, badly armed and out of step, all of them gaping in awe at Heloïse. General Choy, realising he was on a winning ticket, had joined in the campaigning at last, while Tsu, his sphere of influence expanding again after Ira’s unexpected success, was reported already to have his yamen and his concubines at a country home levied from a Hwai-Yang merchant. Peter Cheng had had a story that he was already printing worthless Tsu dollars to exchange for gold with which to pay off his debt to Ira, and had even set up a bank and was forcing the local merchants, under the threat of decapitation, to trade with him so that he was rapidly gathering in every scrap of money in the district.
Until the victory, Cheng had insisted, he had been for a long time having secret dealings with Shanghai bankers and had had a tug with steam up waiting downstream to whisk him to the coast, but with success in the air, he’d changed his plans and was preparing once more to move into Hwai-Yang and get a grip again on his province.
The rain cleared miraculously and that night a glow in the sky to the east indicated buildings on fire, and rumours came in from Hakau that Hwai-Yang had fallen again. General Kwei had retreated further east, they heard, and the mob had swept to the waterfront, and the city was in a turmoil, with no one in authority. A few Japanese merchants were reported to have been killed and the British gunboat, Cockroach, had been sent up from Shanghai to remove any of the American and British missionaries who wanted to avoid the fighting.
They reached Hakau at first light after a difficult journey when the old lorry had persisted again and again in casting its drive-chain, and bumped across the fields with Wang bouncing up and down in the back with the timber and the ropes and the wheels. Loading the salvaged Le Rhône and anything else that could be repaired or sold, they shoved the snouts of the two old vehicles between the straggling troops again to where the wreckage of the De Havilland lay.
The Tsu sergeant had long since vanished with his men and one or two local coolies had stripped some of the linen from the wings for their own use, but apart from a few scattered fragments of wood that had been stolen for firewood, it remained as they had left it.
With the fighting safely to the east now near Hwai-Yang, the area was quiet again round the wrecked and deserted farmhouse. There was no sign of the farmer and Ira guessed he’d been snatched up long since and shoved into uniform by some marauding warlord, and his wife dragged along for the entertainment of the troops.
One of the coolies, scratching around the wreckage told them there had been no troops past for some time, apart from deserters from Kwei’s defeated army who were still hiding in the woods and living like bandits, unspeakably cruel, unsuperstitious and highly dangerous. A gang of them had wiped out a neighbouring village a week before but they had now moved north into the hills and nothing had been seen of them for some time.
Removing the wings was harder than they’d imagined because wood had splintered and metal sheered and twisted in the crash, and they were forced here and there to saw through spars to get at the big bolts at the wing roots. Using coolie labour from Hakau, however, they chopped down three tall pines and erected a sheerlegs and began to slacken off control cables and bracing wires, and unscrew turnbuckles and nuts. It took them the best part of the first day, even with Heloïse’s brute strength, to prepare the way and all the next day to remove the wings, swing them clear and lay them out on the grass.
For safety, they removed the splintered propeller and stood back, grimy, tired and aching, but unable to stop smiling as Ellie produced rum and hot coffee from a little paraffin stove. Sammy was sucking a split thumb and Ira was wiping away the perspiration from an oil-streaked face. Ellie looked up, smiling at their looks of satisfaction.
‘I guess we’re in business,’ she said.
They paused only long enough to swallow the coffee then Sammy clambered on to the dust-spattered engine and began to examine it.
‘Nothing wrong with it, Ira,’ he said gleefully. ‘Nothing at all, as far as I can see. Gilt-edged, tip-top condition. A bit of strain on the shaft, maybe, because the prop hit the mud, but she’ll stand a lot more work – a hell of a lot more work.’
Sleeping in a tent under the gaudy moonlight that lit up the knobbly mountains in weird tortured shapes, they were surprisingly happy despite the discomfort as they re-rigged the sheerlegs over the nose of the machine and jacked it into position again so that Wang could build a crude undercarriage, and eventually, using the wheels they’d acquired from De Sa, they cautiously lowered it again and watched it settle, then swung the twisted tail unit round and attached it to the back of Heloïse.
‘What about the wings, Ira?’ Sammy asked. ‘Suppose some bastard comes along and uses ’em for firewood.’
‘He won’t while I’m here,’ Ira grinned. ‘You take the fuselage and the Le Rhône to Tzetang. We can easily move it from there to Yaochow. Take Wang with you and leave him to keep an eye on it and come back.
As Sammy clanked off, trailing the quivering fuselage, Wang sitting high on the engine, blank-faced and self-important before the Hakau coolies, it began to drizzle, but they ignored it to collect the rest of the fragments of wing and place them in a neat pile.
By the time they had sorted out the splintered pieces and placed them alongside the huge wings, and the last of the coolies had left for Hakau, the evening had set in. The cicadas were tuning up but the stillness was immense, and a bronze light was coming through the trees to lay golden stripes across the wet grass. In the distance, they could see the mountains and above them great dark towers of rain cloud that looked almost solid in the dusk. Apart from the unroofed farmhouse nearby there was no sign of habitation anywhere on the bleak landscape.
As darkness fell, they saw the glow in the sky which showed where Tsu’s troops continued to press eastwards. A cool breeze was lifting the tent flap as they ate corned beef and sipped scalding coffee fr
om tin mugs, and outside they could hear the last drowsy mutterings of the birds.
Sitting on his bed-roll, Ira looked across at Ellie on the camp stool. There had been a new kinship of spirit between them now for some time, based on the firm belief they both had in independence. Ellie’s hands were grimy with oil, her short blonde hair untidy, her eyes tired. She had torn her shirt on a sheered bolt as they had pulled the wings free, and he could see her skin through it, and there were oil-stains on her breeches, but she seemed satisfied and deeply happy.
‘It’s going to rain,’ Ira said. ‘Let’s hope we finish before the weather breaks.’
She nodded, not speaking, and began to clear away the mugs, and it was almost dark and drops of water were tapping at the tent as they lapsed into a silence that was tense and nervous, as though each of them was in the presence of a stranger. Ellie seemed lost in a morass of her own thoughts and her eyes were uncertain suddenly. Ira, too, was aware that beneath the brittle shell of their companionship unexpected currents flowed.
It was raining more heavily now, the drops tapping rapidly at the canvas in a nervous light-fingered way that seemed to highlight the tension, and Ira drew a deep breath, finding the silence unbearable.
‘It’s sometimes hard to realise that this is me,’ he said, speaking abruptly. ‘Here, in China, doing what I am doing. It’s only six years since I came back from Russia, full of schemes to set up an air carrying company.’
Ellie looked up. ‘Six years ago,’ she said, ‘I’d just gotten myself married to Ches Putnam and was looking forward to living happily ever after. I was young enough then to think I might.’
Ira gestured uncertainly. ‘Is it OK to talk about it now?’
She managed a laugh. ‘After being with Pat all that time? Yeah, it’s OK’
‘Wasn’t it ever the same with Pat?’
She shook her head. ‘We just leaned on each other, that’s all. We’d all been living in the same house, so we just went on living in the same house. It seemed the most sensible thing to do.’
It was quite dark outside now and they were still talking by the light of the lamp when Ira lifted his head, listening.
‘Someone coming.’
He reached under his blankets for the Smith and Wesson he’d carried ever since his arrival in China. The voices outside were Chinese and they could hear the clink of weapons over the whisper of the rain. Quietly, he bent down and released the curtains at the back of the tent. The noise of the rain seemed to grow louder.
‘Outside,’ he said softly.
They had hardly slipped free when they heard shouts and a shot roared in the darkness. One arm round Ellie in the wet grass, Ira thumbed the safety catch off the revolver and, as a figure came hurtling round the tent, he pulled the trigger. For a fraction of a second, they saw a Chinese face distorted with rage under a wet bus conductor’s hat with a broken peak, then the Chinese fell back heavily against the tent, which collapsed under him, the canvas wrapping round him like a shroud.
There were more shouts and two more Chinese, both with rifles, began to scramble for the road. Ira fired at them, but they didn’t stop running and the third man freed himself from the tent and bolted after them, uttering little yelps of fright.
The silence as the yelling died was immense.
‘Who were they, Ira?’ Ellie asked in a small breathless voice.
Ira was rummaging among the wrecked tent, throwing out blankets and leather coats so they could sleep in the cabin of the lorry. ‘Deserters,’ he said shortly. ‘From Kwei’s army, I expect.’
The rain was falling more heavily now, hissing and rustling in the grass as they threw their possessions down alongside the De Havilland wings, and Ira became aware of the breeze that was chilling them both to the bone.
‘Ira,’ Ellie wailed suddenly, ‘I’m frozen.’
He thrust a torch at her. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Grab what you can. I’ll get a fire going in the farmhouse there. I expect it’s full of fleas but it’s better than this.’
While she scrambled among the ruins of the tent, he climbed inside the shell-smashed building and began to wrench up splintered beams. Half the roof had survived and there was dry straw below it.
He got a fire going at last, the rain hissing and spattering as it hit the flames, then Ellie came stumbling through the door with an armful of blankets and, spreading them on the straw, crouched over the flames, hugging herself.
Ira flung more splintered beams on the flames and turned to her as they roared up. She was shivering and her teeth were chattering.
‘Get your clothes off,’ he said. ‘I’ll rub you down.’
He took out a brandy flask. ‘Here, have a swig at this.’
He thrust it at her and made her take a couple of heavy swallows then, in the light of the flames, she pulled off her clothes and he rubbed at her naked body with a damp towel until she began to yell. Her breath was aromatic with the brandy as she laughed in his face.
‘Warm now?’
‘Sure I’m warm. How about you?’
He grinned, heated by his exertions, and she reached for a blanket to put round herself, and began to hang her clothes in steamy strings near the fire. Then she pulled off his shirt and began to work on him with the towel, but he brushed it aside, staring at her.
‘I’ll dry you,’ she said.
‘Damn drying me.’
The towel dropped and she stared at him wide-eyed over the top of it. He took it from her slowly and as he reached for her she caught at his hands, but not to put them away. As she pulled him to her, mouthing little suffering sounds in his ear, he felt her flesh warm against his and the contact made him feel giddy, and as they sank to their knees, the night was shut out and their mouths began to search eagerly for each other.
Chapter 2
Ira spent the rest of the night scratching unashamedly in the blankets, and awoke after a restless sleep, his skin blotched with red. The rain had stopped and the first of the daylight was already outlining the knuckly hills with gold under the sharp morning sky, and in the distance, a mile away, he could see the coolies from Hakau heading towards him, their cone-shaped hats bobbing as they picked their way across the fields.
The breeze had dropped and the sun was already warm after the rain. As he stretched, Ellie stirred alongside him and he realised she was crying – in a quiet soft weeping that was entirely devoid of histrionics.
He sat bolt upright and put an arm round her. ‘Ellie, what’s wrong?’
She turned a tear-stained face towards him, trying to smile. ‘It’s because I’m happy,’ she whispered. ‘I’m crazy, I guess, but I’ve never been so happy.’
He tried to console her and she stopped crying at last, and they began to joke weakly with each other.
‘I was going to bring my bed-roll in here,’ he said slowly. ‘And leave you the tent.’
Her mouth played over the skin of his arm. ‘Better the way it is,’ she whispered.
After a while he scratched himself. ‘I think I’ve been bitten,’ he said.
She smiled drowsily. ‘Come to think of it,’ she said, ‘so have I.’
The fire had burned low when he lifted himself to his elbow again. Ellie moved in the straw and sat up alongside him, her head against his shoulder, the perfume she used giving the skin above her breasts a warm fragrant lemony smell. They stared at each other’s nakedness, unembarrassed but shocked by the frightening violence of their lovemaking. There had been nothing else in the world for a time but the flaring darkness and their racing pulses, and they realised that what had happened had been inevitable almost from the day Fagan had died.
‘How’re the fleas?’ he asked at last. ‘Biting?’
She blinked at him, and managed a laugh. ‘Not too deep.’
‘I’m going for a swim in the stream. Wash some of ’em away. Coming?’
She nodded and they ran together through the dewy grass, carrying their clothes, and began to splash among the rocks. The coolies
had arrived by the time they had scrambled out, and Ellie, cooking eggs on the remains of the fire, gave them tins of corned beef to share.
Later, sitting over their plates, she looked up at Ira. Her shirt was unbuttoned so that he could see the cleft between her breasts, and her hair was still wet and curling on her forehead. She looked tranquil and calmer than he’d ever seen her.
‘You’re beautiful, Ellie,’ he said, as though he were seeing her for the first time.
She smiled, her face devoid of pain and frustration. ‘I’ve not been called that for a long time,’ she said. ‘Pat tried occasionally, but I guess he didn’t really mean it. Maybe I wasn’t, in fact – not then.’
She bent over the fire, her face flushed, her hair over her eyes, and he realised he’d never seen her looking happier, then she raised her head unexpectedly and caught his eyes on her.
‘Ira,’ she said. ‘When this is all over, when we’ve rebuilt the De Havilland, can we get the hell out? Go somewhere safe and civilised, somewhere I won’t feel scared and homesick and restless.’
She looked unexpectedly young and insecure suddenly, and he smiled and nodded. ‘Of course. We’ll get the company going again with the Avro and the De Havilland.’
She shook her head. ‘Not an airline, Ira,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘My brother was killed flying planes. So was my father and so was Ches and Pat. Not you, too, Ira.’
He gestured. ‘It’s different, Ellie, with an airline. You have – time to check things. It won’t happen to me.’
‘Only to the other guy?’
Ira’s expression changed and he nodded slowly.
‘It’s always the other guy it’ll happen to, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I guess the other guy’s saying that, too – of you.’
The Mercenaries Page 24