The Mercenaries (39 page)

At the end of his breezy diatribe, all the enthusiasm went out of the old man. He’d obviously loved China and had known it in the days of peace, when learning had been more important than war, and scholars had taken precedence over warriors. He now had no family left and nowhere to go, and he couldn’t imagine going home to die of boredom in some English south-coast watering place.

He stared round his shabby surgery as they left, stooping and old and suddenly sad, saying goodbye to the work of a lifetime.

‘God knows what’ll happen now,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m too old to start again.’ He shrugged, all the weariness of China in his sagging shoulders. ‘Suppose it had to come some time, though. This is the only country in the world where the people eat less, live more frugally and are clothed worse than they were in the Middle Ages. I suppose it’ll all work out in the end and China’ll become a nation.’

He paused and sighed. ‘God help us when it does, though,’ he ended, repeating something Sammy had once said--years ago now, it seemed. ‘There are so many of them.’

7

With Sammy roughly patched up, they set up their tents in the field next to the saw mill. They had managed to acquire enough aviation spirit for their needs and had decided that, with the country in the state it was in, the most sensible move would be to fly the aeroplanes south with four members of the party aboard, while the rest, led by one of the Europeans, would convey everything they could by lorry and car.

It would mean abandoning some of their precious possessions but Ira was already making plans to get as much as he could aboard one of the steamers that were still miraculously plying from Siang-Chang to the coast, and they began to do all over again everything they’d done at Tsosiehn, patching and repairing the damaged planes, erecting sheerlegs and bolting the wings in place, rigging and re-rigging and testing the engines, every bit of power that Heloïse had supplied now provided by their own strength and that of a small group of coolies they hired.

The doctor vanished from Siang-Chang with all his belongings, moving down-stream aboard a tug, and after him the rest of the Europeans, first one, then another, then little groups, until there seemed to be a whole flood of them converging on the coast.

The whole of South China seemed to be on the march now, each uprising against the hated foreigners starting another in a chain reaction, and early in the New Year they heard that the mob had stormed the concession at Hankow and that the British had signed away their rights and were withdrawing. Millions of pounds’ worth of property was being left without even a backward glance, its owners glad to be leaving with their lives. The ferment that had seemed like a great undisciplined anarchy, more froth and foam than substance, had jelled at last into a great campaign of detestation against the Western powers for the indignities they had heaped on China for generations.

Siang-Chang remained quiet at the news because there were still British sailors in the town, then the news came that not only the Hankow rights had been signed away, but also the rights for Kiukiang and Siang-Chang. The British Government, recognising the practical impossibility of maintaining such doubtful privileges deep in the heart of a hostile country, was retreating to the coast.

When the news reached the city it was the signal for a crazy demonstration of joy. The noise could be heard even at the airfield by the saw mill, as though the whole of China were jeering at the humiliated Europeans. The hatred was suddenly such that no coolie dared even offer them his rickshaw because there had been too many beatings with bicycle chains and too many rickshaws burnt, and the Europeans had to go in cars or on foot, and always in groups for safety. There were still a few scared Sikh policemen about but there weren’t enough of them and they hesitated to move far from their barracks because the news of the Hankow humiliation had driven the coolies to the point when they were beginning to open their shirts and challenging them to shoot.

The bitterness became a vicious circle because every time a white man walked, every time he carried his own luggage, every time he prepared his own meal, the Europeans lost more face. The Chinese had seen them humbled, their women in tears and their children wailing with fear, had seen them cowed and bloodstained as they made their way through the spitting, shouting mobs to the gunboats, and they had realised for the first time that there were enough of them to throw them out For generations they had accepted their inferiority without question, but now they had been shown that they could become a nation simply by joining hands and marching together. Treaties no longer mattered--or showing the flag, or even guns--and though there were still a few Europeans who clung to the belief that the northern warlords’ alliance would win in the end, no one with any sense thought so any longer. Chiang had too many of the people behind him, and his regime stood for China and the Chinese.

It had been a miserable Christmas, and 1927 had arrived with stinging veils of thin snow and no celebrations, and not much to drink in the cheerless huts they occupied at the saw mill. Every day they seemed to grow shabbier and every day more wretched because they daren’t leave the aircraft for a single night to live in a hotel, and their meals, their ablutions and all their rest were undertaken in conditions that left them filthy, weary and sick at heart.

Ira grew more grim and silent. He was determined to the point of obsession to reach the coast with everything he possessed. Getting to Siang-Chang and the repairs they had been forced to make had cleared them of the last of their money and to land in South China without their machines would have been disastrous.

It was a bleak prospect, nevertheless, because there was no chance of doing business. No one was making money any longer and all they could hope for was the opportunity to leave with their planes intact. The Chinese merchants daren’t trade with foreigners any longer, even if they’d wished to, and the few Europeans still remaining were plagued and harassed by the unions and the student committees. All over China the Chinese were suddenly organised, trained and unforgiving. American and British consulates were being wrecked and flags trampled on, and British and American sailors were driving up the sluggish midwinter river to shell Chinese cities in attempts to rescue their nationals.

The days of the treaty powers were numbered now and every vessel in China seemed to be up the Yangtze, river steamers and English, American, and French gunboats--flat little ships with high smokestacks and ancient cannon, manned by a couple of officers and a few men--struggling to evacuate all who wanted to be evacuated and a great many who didn’t. There was a constant stream of people past the airfield, and missionaries in every hotel in the city, their wives nervous, their children fretful, paying for nothing because they couldn’t afford to, quarrelling and self-righteous, insisting that the Chinese had every right to self-determination yet prickly with pride as they saw the coolies laughing at their predicament.

Typhus and cholera had broken out to the north and there seemed to be no food anywhere because no one had the courage to work the fields, and bodies, shoeless and stripped of their clothing, lay along the roadsides. Crops had been left to rot and portions of the railway line had been destroyed and never repaired. This was the China of the centuries, the China of floods and famines and war, a tragic China of bloodshed and battle; and daily, emaciated families dragged themselves across the countryside to wherever they hoped to find refuge, while in the cities where the Europeans were departing, the students, concerned only with victory, danced through the streets, crazy with joy, carrying flags and paper lanterns and poles with strings of fireworks attached to them.

The weather was still cold and there were only a few Europeans in Siang-Chang now, threatened every time they put a foot on the street. They no longer had servants and spent most of their time in gloomy speculation about the future.

Wind and driving rain came down off the mountains, and they had to work on the freezing engine parts with their blue hands in mittens. Then heavy snow fell, muffling sounds and hiding the drabness of the countryside. After a couple of days it turned to slush that soaked the feet and finally froze into ugly awkward crackling lumps that made walking difficult, and in the field beyond the sawmill they had to build fires to warm the congealed engine oil, while in the city the frozen bodies of the beggars were collected every morning from under the arches of the city gates where they’d sheltered.

It was only a matter of days now before they could be ready to move on, and they had already started packing again when a student in a Sun Yat-Sen tunic and a scarf, small and slight and frozen-faced behind his thick Japanese spectacles, came to see them. He was accompanied by a silent crowd of children and other students, some of them girls, small, neat and pretty in spite of their padded clothing, but with eyes that were full of hatred. Ellie watched them with eyes bitter with the same hatred, her mouth tight, her hands moving clumsily over her cigarettes.

‘In the name of General Chiang,’ the student leader said, ‘we have come to take over your aeroplanes. General Tsu has been defeated and all his property has become the property of the people.’

‘You touch them aeroplanes, mister,’ Sammy said in a low voice, ‘and I’ll crack your skull open with this wrench.’ Ira pushed him back roughly. One word too many from any of them and there could well have been a frenzied attack on the aeroplanes if not on them personally.

‘The aeroplanes do not belong to General Tsu,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘General Tsu’s air force has been disbanded and we have bought his machines.’

The student seemed a little disconcerted by the news and went into a huddle with his friends before returning to the attack.

‘The Labourers’ Union,’ he said, ‘has declared a strike against all foreigners. We demand that you hand over the aeroplanes just the same.’

Sammy had Fagan’s Colt in his hand now, pointing at the boy’s face. ‘You try it, Slant-Eye,’ he said. ‘And I’ll blow your bleddy head off.’

The boy showed no sign of alarm. ‘Your aeroplanes have killed Chinese men, women and children,’ he said.

Sammy spat. ‘Give me a chance and I’ll kill some more,’ he said, and Ira finally wrenched the weapon away from him for safety.

‘We shall return,’ the boy in the Sun tunic said. ‘China has become a nation and she will no longer tolerate foreigners on her soil. Britain is a paper tiger and we shall remove your aeroplanes by force. Until then you are boycotted.’

He turned and stalked away, and the following morning the airfield coolies failed to appear for work, just as they had at Tsosiehn. The day after, a mob, taking courage from the fact that the hated white men were in retreat everywhere, appeared on the field.

One of the Wangs, searching for food, fortunately saw them coming, and they had time to drag the aircraft hurriedly together, with the vehicles parked alongside where they could protect them, and to send the Chinese personnel off the field for their own safety.

They had no sooner finished when the mob arrived, marching round and round them, carrying banners and shouting slogans from the writings of Sun Yat-Sen.

‘Go home, English fly-devils,’ they yelled. ‘Damn King George! Chinese children starve to feed George Five!’

Sammy watched them, his hand never far from Fagan’s Colt, his eyes dangerous, a new Sammy, aged by tragedy and hard as nails.

‘To hell with George Five,’ he grated. ‘It’s Sammy Shapiro I’m worried about and this bleddy air carriers he’s a director of.’

There were tiny children among the mob, and old men, women with bound feet and young girls with babies on their backs, all waving paper flags and all screaming with the students. As they passed, they spat and shook their fists at the little group by the aircraft, and some of the girls tore open their shirts and exposed their breasts.

‘Shoot! Shoot! ‘ they screamed.

The noise was hypnotic in its intensity and the hatred terrifying, and Ellie stood with Ira’s arm round her, her hands to her ears, her shoulders hunched, wincing as though she couldn’t stand another moment of it.

There was nothing they could do, however, nothing five times their number could have done, except wait.

‘Hang on, Ellie,’ Ira kept saying quietly. ‘Hang on just a bit longer.’

The students had dogs tied to barrows, European flags attached to their tails, and one barrow carried a grunting trussed pig with ‘George Five’ painted on its pink and grimy flank. The faces beyond it were contorted with loathing, the slant eyes squinting with fury.

For three hours the Chinese marched round the field, shouting abuse and waving their banners, three hours of menace, with every now and again someone rushing to jab holes in the fabric of the planes with a knife or a sickle. Every time Sammy raised Fagan’s Colt, Ira grabbed his arm.

‘For God’s sake, Sammy,’ he snapped, losing his temper. ‘You knock one of these boys over and none of us will get to the coast.’

The mob stayed until their ears were numb with the racket, then, without warning, marched back to the city, and they all drew breath.

Ellie hid her face in Ira’s coat, weeping into the leather, her whole frame shaking with her sobs, and Sammy lowered the revolver as though it weighed a ton.

‘They’ve gone, Ira,’ he said.

That night, when the Chengs and the Wangs had returned and they had begun the weary work of patching the slit fabric yet again, Ira went into the city to make arrangements for everyone who couldn’t fly to go to the coast on the only steamer that still remained in the city. His face was grim and unforgiving but he knew that to arrive in South China without their machines would have set them back for years. What they possessed had to be clung on to, because they hadn’t the capital or the organisation to start again.

The Ford’s engine was knocking badly by the time he arrived back at the airfield, where Sammy and Ellie had started a fire and were burning everything burnable that they couldn’t take with them. The aircraft had bundles in the rear cockpits and lashed against the fuselages, and the smoke from the fire was blue against the wings as it rose slowly into the air.