The Call of the Thunder Dragon (30 page)

She tried not to let the
Colonel’s game get to her. She knew he was playing with her. The
silence went on, the blindfold tight around her face. There were
long pauses then sudden noise. Shouted questions and the Colonel’s
fist banging the table.

“Tell me again. What do you know
about Falstaff? Miss Zam I’m talking to you... now answer!” The
Colonel smashed his hand down onto the table next to her face.

She had told them one thing, her
first name only. It had slipped out when they’d first begun the
game. Steadfastly she’d refused to speak since then, clamping her
lips shut she thought of Falstaff and his enraged face as she had
seen him when the Japanese had attacked them. She waited for the
sound that would signal Falstaff’s attack, trying to block out the
noises and questions around her, she waited in hope.

The Colonel leaned close to her
face again breathing on her. He told her again what he would ask
the two eager, competitive soldiers to do to her.

In the historic Japanese Edo
period, once a castle fell the warlords turned into beasts and
raped the women inside and they killed anyone who resisted.
Subduing women that was normal thought Haga-Jin for someone in his
position, a conquering and unbeaten officer, like the
daimyo
³⁰
of old. The women
were low as the ground the men as high was the sky. In Japan it had
always been that way, and they still say it today.

Zam tried not to move, but her
shoulders flexed and her fingers clenched into fists.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” The
Colonel said. “We could untie those ropes. Now talk to us!”

Zam nodded, she was starting to
break. She must have the courage she thought. She shall be firm she
told herself, she must keep her wits about her. She would rather
die than yield.

“Alright, I will untie you! Just
tell me what do you know about the Simao airstrip, who were
Falstaff’s contacts?”

Zam remained motionless, except
for the perspiration breaking on her brow.

The Colonel banged the table
again, this time catching Zam’s hair.

She let out a stifled squeal.

“Shall I just untie you and give
you to those two men. They are ready for you!” The Colonel leaned
closer. “And I am tired of asking questions!”

He stood and walked around the
room towards the bathroom. “When I come back, you can have her!” He
said in Japanese.

The Colonel roughly pulled down
her blindfold. Zam glimpsed the two filthy looking men leering at
her.

The two soldiers jumped up and
grunted their approval, undoing their belts.

Falstaff found the back stairs
guarded. The taxi was gone, but he figured if there was something
worth guarding, it was worth checking out.

He hesitated, wondering how to
approach the stairs without rousing the man guarding it. He
considered shooting him dead outright, but knew this might alarm
whoever was within. He cast about for something to use and noticed
sacks of hair waiting to be disposed of; the short clippings were
all around on the ground. He picked up the first sack to hand and
hurled it at the guard.

The startled guard looked up, his
heart pounding he thought himself under attack, but the actual
effect of the sack of hair was that of a soft pillow. As the guard
looked around bewildered, Falstaff jumped on him smothering with a
second sack. Falstaff used the knife from his belt, stabbing
through the sacking, twice in quick succession. The guard’s
struggles suddenly ceased and fell back covered in hair.

Slipping the knife away, Falstaff
took the stairs two at a time. There was one door at the top of the
stairs and Falstaff applied himself to it with his boot straight
out.

The door smashed inward, not
designed to operate that way, the frame inside splintered and gave
way as well. Falstaff paused looking over the ruined door blocking
his way.

His revolver ready in his hand
came up and levelled firing four times.

Inside he heard Zam sobbing. He
pocketed the revolver and wrenched the door aside. He boiled with
anger seeing how Zam was still hog-tied, her hands wrapped around
her legs. Forcefully throwing aside the broken door he shouted out
wordlessly, then spat in the direction the two Japanese soldiers.
Naked accept for their vests and socks, now lay against each other
embraced in death.

Zam was stammering. “Is that you
John-di-di? Is that you?”

Losing his voice, he found he
couldn’t speak. Relief and emotion flooded through him. Falstaff
cut her bounds instead and lifted the blindfold.

“Did you get them all?” she said
croaked.

Falstaff frowned. “What?”

“Three of them!” She shouted.
“three!”

Haga-Jin pulled open the bathroom
door a crack and fired his machine pistol, spraying the room.

Falstaff pulled Zam off the table
just in time, they both slammed into the wall and collapsed in a
heap. Pushing Zam aside, Falstaff grabbed the table and shoved
hard, ramming it against the bathroom room.

“Help me hold it!” Falstaff
grunted. “I need to reload!” Fumbling with his revolver, he opened
it dropping the empty cases to the floor, but Zam couldn’t respond.
She knelt shaking her head, trembling with the effort, her feet and
hands still tied.

Splitters exploded from the door
as the Japanese Colonel emptied another magazine into the door.

Falstaff jumped over the table
and rammed the barrel of his revolver through one of the splintered
openings.

“Get back from the door now!” He
roared, pounding the splintered panels with the flat of his free
hand.

His stitches and ribs flared in
pain, his voice wavered and cracked, but he roared louder in
response to the pain.

“Get back from the door! I’ve got
you covered, you miserable pig! Drop that pistol or I’ll kill you
now, you bastard!” Falstaff face was red with desperate rage, he
put everything into his words, with relief he heard a heavy
clatter.

“Kick it over to the wall and get
down!” he said with relief, his energy fading. “Lie down flat!”

He jumped from the table and
lifted Zam, crouching to get her onto his shoulder, he ran down the
stairs almost falling.

As soon as they were on the
street, he dropped Zam on to her feet and cut her bonds.

“Can you walk?” He wheezed.

Bravely she nodded, shaking and
unsteady. Falstaff took her hand and led her downhill towards the
river bank.

“Quickly we must find help before
they regroup or that dope realises he’s been had!”

Colonel Haga-Jin lay on the
floor of the bathroom, the filthy toilet, no more than a pipe into
the drains, the cracked sink dripping on his head.

No one came; it had gone quiet.
He raised his head slowly and saw that the revolver that had
pointed at his heart had gone. Unsteadily he retrieved his pistol
and reloaded, sliding in the new magazine in an instant.

He pushed uneasily at the door.
His worst fears were realised; his men were dead, the prisoner
gone. He had faced Falstaff for the second time and he had failed.
The pilot had got away again. His feet touched the rolling empty
shells. It had been a bluff he realised, Falstaff had deceived him,
with an empty gun.

Haga-Jin swallowed hard. His
fingers touching the scar across his face, a trickle of blood ran
from the fine stitches.

So this was dishonour he thought.
He felt sick unable to move. Slowly his fear turned to anger.

“I will kill that man and have my
revenge. I will hear him beg me for mercy!”

Ludwig was running hard, heading
for the fisherman’s bar.

A few moments before he had been
on the roof the laundryman’s house. His age telling, as he’d crept
forward, heart beating his chest. Out of breath, even before he’d
reached the low roof, he had thought it would be easy to crawl
onto. But at over fifty the small climb had tired him out.

From the roof he’d seen inside;
an injured man being treated for a shoulder wound. But no sign of
the girl.. Then Japanese had spotted him through the open sky light
below. As they shouted, screeching intelligibly in Japanese, he’d
fumbled for his pistol and fired off a lucky shot through the
skylight, hitting the bare light bulb in the room below.

“Coup dans le
mille!
³¹
” He croaked to
himself.

As hard as Ludwig could run. The
two Japanese behind him could run faster. He gulped for breath, a
hoarse rasp resonating in his throat. The two of the Japanese were
closing in on him. Ludwig fired his pistol until it was empty, but
hit nothing. Now the shadowy pursuers were closer than ever.

Ludwig was close to the centre of
town and the streets were starting to fill with people. He began to
relax, maybe the men following would let him go he hoped. He was
almost at the corner of the street leading down to the bar and the
river side when they jumped him.

A hand roughly grabbed his arm,
dragging him into a narrow passageway. He was punched to the ground
by the first soldier as a second scaled the wall into the alley
behind him. Together they started raining blows on him. Ludwig
raised his hands to protect his head. He winced at the sharp
hardness of their fists alternating blows on his head and face.
They smashed away with their fists, angrily without purpose.

Suddenly he was not alone. The
noise in the alley had not gone unnoticed. Myitkyina was a peaceful
town, the noise and gunshots heard from both the barber shop and
the north of the town had set people on edge. Two boatmen came to
Ludwig’s aid.

They were no match for the
soldiers. Even as Ludwig staggered to his feet, the Japanese were
turning on him again, having knocked the wind out of the boatman
with practised ease. Ludwig dodged trying to pass his attackers,
but this time knives were pulled out. Ludwig stumbled at the sight
the glinting steel, falling against the wall.

Before they could put their
knives to use, the Japanese were attacked from behind. One fell,
his head bleeding, the other dodged the blow of the whirling
spanner and sidestepped the big man behind the blow. Who attacked
again with the spanner.

Ludwig found himself being hauled
to his feet, finally in friendly hands.

“Who is it?” Ludwig blinked, his
one good eye closing up as welt on his forehead drained oozing
blood. “Qu'est-ce?”

“It is I, Ludwig! You blind auld
fool, what have ye walked in’ta this time, eh? It’s me Alistair,
ye’oon business partner!” Alistair hung onto the Frenchman, who was
about to fall.

“Oh lor, they’re getting’ away!”
the scot sighed. “Gud riddance I say!”

Seeing they were outnumbered, the
Japanese backed away into the street, then ran running towards the
river.

The four defenders came out into
the street, they looked up and down. There was no sign of the
Japanese. Alistair thanked the two fisherman for their timely aid
while he steadied Ludwig with an arm around his shoulder.

“You’ve really had the wind
knocked oot of ye! It is a good think I came along, now git on yer
feet, an’ come on doon to the workshop! I needs yer’s help!”

Ludwig plodded after Alistair.
“Why?”

“Damn, Japanese that’s what!
They’re coming out of the woodwork! I was keeping a sharp eye on
those two pilots when I got clobbered, either that funny lookin’
bloke or our Barber, Abe? When I came tu’ like, there was an
injured man, ul’ bandaged and bleeding being brought in. Jap
paratroopers are clomping aboot’ the workshop! They’re stealing ul
our gasoline!” The Scottish brogue rolled.

They stopped at the corner
looking down the wide street leading down to the river. They could
see the flying boat and men moving around the jetty.

“Aye, they’re loading the cans
into the boat now!” Alistair pointed.

“Are you armed?” Ludwig asked,
echoing Falstaff’s earlier question.

“No, they took my revolver, I
managed to grab this wrench before I came lookin’ for ye! Give me
yours!”

“You can take it but its
empty!”

“Then it’s about time I
reloaded?” Falstaff muttered as he came up from behind them. “One
of you take Zam, let’s get down there!”

Ludwig straightened himself and
took Zam’s arm. Glad that one part of their plan had worked.
Alistair tapped the wrench in his in the palm his hand.

“Will ye not hurry? If yer want
to buy that gasoline, you’d better get a move on or it’ll ul’ be
gone!”

Holding his revolver in both
hands, Falstaff rotated the barrel, inserting the bullets one by
one as they strolled openly down the street towards the flying
boat. His hands shook, fumbling he had dropped at least two bullets
before he had finished loading.

There were two Japanese on the
jetty, the rest were aboard, passing back the cans of precious
gasoline. Inside Captain Soujiro lay bleeding. They had been
summoned by Abe, as soon as Colonel Haga-Jin had staggered along,
ordering everyone to regroup. Things were happening fast. Haga-Jin
boarded the plane still in a daze while his men followed. Only the
pilots seemed to remain calm enough to give orders that the
gasoline be seized.

Falstaff fired one shot, hitting
a Japanese soldier in the thigh. Astonished the other dropped the
can he was about to throw on board and instead jumped himself.
Hearing the shot, the pilot on the seaplane’s bow cut the mooring
lines. The river current quickly turned the flying boat, dragging
it out into faster-flowing mid-stream and out of sight.

The soldier left behind tried to
swim after it, gripping his thigh to stop the gushing blood, but
the flying boat was starting its engines and was already
accelerating away. He slipped beneath the water and had disappeared
by the time Falstaff had reached the river side.