Exploits (8 page)

He looked me up and down for a couple of minutes, and then shrugged.

“All right, Reverend Jones,” said Doctor Ho. “This is the very last time I shall need this ploy, so your knowledge will never be able to be used against me. I will tell you the secret because it amuses me to do so, and because only a mind like yours can fully appreciate the subtlety of it.” He paused. “Sir Mortimer will spend every day for the next seven weeks searching the dragon, the straw, the food, and the water for these imaginary microdots and non-existent jewels and drugs. He will never find what he is looking for, and he will never prevent me from receiving the money I need to continue my operations—and yet, hundreds of times each day, he will be in physical contact with that which he seeks.”

“I don't think I follow you,” I said.

“The
cage
, Reverend Jones!” he said with a laugh. “The bars are made of pure platinum. For five years Sir Mortimer has microscopically examined everything within the cage, and has never thought to examine the cage itself.”

“Well, I'll be damned!” I said.

“That is a foregone conclusion.” Doctor Ho took me by the arm. “Now that you know, I'm afraid you must remain as my guest for a week, until the cage is well on its way. After that, you are free to go anywhere you wish.”

Well, he took my up to this stone fortress of his, and gave me my own room and three squares a day, and every afternoon he stopped by to play chess with me until he caught me moving one of his pieces when I thought he wasn't looking, and after the week was up he gave me one final breakfast and had one of his men drive me into Peking.

I read a few weeks later that there was a real live dragon on display in Sydney, so I figured Doctor Aristotle Ho had gotten the funds he needed to conquer the world, but as you will see, I was just a little too preoccupied to worry much about it at the time.

4. The Great Wall

The very first thing I learned in Peking is that Chinamen like games of chance every bit as much as white Christian gents do. The very last thing I learned in Peking is that they are even quicker to spot a marked deck of cards than your average American or European. The two learning experiences came about twenty minutes apart, and before the morning was half over I was back on the road, looking for some new place to settle down and build my Tabernacle.

It was about this time that China was pretty much divided up into kingdoms, and each kingdom was ruled by a warlord, which may have been a little harsh on some of the local citizenry but sure saved a lot of time and effort at the ballot box, and it occurred to me that after all the time they spent fighting each other, at least some of the armies were probably in need of some spiritual comforting, such as could only be brung to them by a sensitive and caring man of the cloth, such as myself.

I'd picked up a smattering of Chinese while on my way from Macao to Peking, so once I was a few miles out of the city I stopped an old man who was taking his cow out for a walk, and asked him where the nearest warlord had set up shop.

He told me that a General Sim Chow's barracks were about forty miles south along the road we were on, but suggested that the warlord most in need of spiritual uplifting and best able to pay for it due to his propensity to trade in certain of his homeland's perishable commodities was General Ling Sen, whose headquarters were many days’ march to the west.

I thanked him for his time and trouble, and decided that I'd give General Sim Chow the first crack at my services, since he was so much closer. I began reappraising the situation when I came to a pile of bodies about ten miles later, and when I saw a Christian mission on fire a mile after that, I decided that General Ling Sen sounded so deeply in need of salvation that there wasn't no time to waste, so I took a hard right and started walking west.

I'd gone maybe seven or eight miles when I heard a drunken voice singing “God Save the King", except when I got close enough to make out the words it was more like “God Save the Liverpool Ruggers Team", which truth to tell made a lot more sense, as the Liverpool Ruggers Team was in fifth place in the standings the last time I'd seen a paper in Macau, whereas the King didn't have no serious competition for the throne that I was aware of.

I kept walking and came upon an English soldier, all dolled up in his parade best, with a bright red jacket and a pith helmet, sitting by the side of the road, drinking from a bottle of rice wine.

“Come join me, friend,” he said when he looked up and saw me, and being the good-natured Christian that I am, I moseyed over and took a swig from his bottle.

“Are we still in China?” he asked after a moment.

“Unless they moved Peking when I wasn't looking, it's half a day's march from here,” I answered.

“Damn!” he said. “I don't think the wine will hold out.” He lowered his voice, and pointed to a backpack full of wine bottles. “I'm drinking my way back to jolly old England.”

“Ain't you attached to some army unit or other?” I asked.

He shook his head unhappily. “They're all lost but me. I went out on a bit of a bender last month, and when I came back everyone was missing. So now I'm going back to England to report that my entire unit has gone A.W.O.L., and I alone am escaped to tell thee.” He reached his hand out. “Merriweather's the name,” he added. “Corporal Marmaduke Merriweather.”

“The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service,” I replied, shaking his hand.

“Did you say
doctor
?” he said. “I've got a boil on my back that could use lancing.”

“I ain't that kind of doctor,” I answered. “I suppose I could recite some of Queen Sheba's racier amorous escapades over it, if you think that might help.”

He considered it for a moment, then finally shook his head. “No, I think not. When all is said and done, it's the lot of the British soldier to suffer pain quietly and nobly.”

“Well, you got the noble part down pat, Brother Merriweather, but I heard you singing from half a mile away.”

“I keep hoping my army might hear me,” he responded glumly.

Well, I took another drink just as a show of solidarity and sympathy, and then he took one, and before long we'd finished that bottle and another one, and then night fell and we slept beneath a tree alongside the road, and when morning came he decided to walk along with me until he came across his unit or England, whichever came first.

“Well, that's right neighborly of you,” I said. “I always feel safer in the company of His Majesty's armed forces.”

“And well you should,” he replied. “Of course, I traded my rifle for the wine, and I seem to have misplaced my ammunition, but still, it's my function in life to protect all things British.”

“I don't want to cause you no serious moral consternation, Brother Merriweather,” I said, “but I ain't British.”

“You speak British,” he said. “That's enough for me.” He paused for a moment. “By the way, Reverend Jones, I know where
I'm
going, but you haven't told me where you're heading yet.”

“I'm seeking the headquarters of General Ling Sen,” I said, “to offer them poor beleaguered soldiers a fighting shot at spiritual atonement.”

“If you will accept a gentle word of advice,” said Merriweather, “spiritual atonement probably does not rank very high up on General Ling Sen's list of priorities.”

“Oh?” I said. “You know something about him?”

He shook his head. “I know absolutely nothing about him.”

“Then how do you figure that he's not in the market for a preacher?”

“The mere fact that I haven't heard of him means that no one who has had any dealings with him has lived long enough to pass on that information to us.” He shrugged. “Still, I suppose it's in our best interest to seek him out.”

“It is?” I asked, since he had just loaded me down with a mighty tall heap of misgivings.

He nodded. “I'm already out of money, and I'll be out of rice wine in another few days. Possibly I can hire on as an advisor.”

“What kind of combat do you specialize in, Brother Merriweather?” I asked.

“Combat?” he repeated. “Do you think I joined the army to
fight
? I'm an accountant.”

“An accountant?”

“
Some
body has to pay for the uniforms and weapons and bullets and transportation and consumables,” he replied. “I mean, Empire is all very well and good, Reverend Jones, but only if it can remain cost effective.”

“And you figure this here General Ling Sen is in serious need of an accountant?” I asked him.

“He's got an army to run, hasn't he?” answered Merriweather. “Why, with the things I could teach him about double-entry bookkeeping alone, he could continue to devastate the countryside for an extra three or four months at no additional cost.”

Well, we kept on walking and drinking from Merriweather's diminishing supply of rice wine, and he kept trying to explain the more esoteric principles of tax-loss carry-forwards to me, and one day kind of melted into another, until one morning about a month later we came smack-dab up against this great big wall and couldn't go no farther.

“Looks like General Ling Sen don't take kindly to visitors,” I opined as I looked both right and left and couldn't see the end of the wall nowhere in sight.

“With a wall like this around his barracks, one might say that he seems absolutely hostile to them,” agreed Merriweather.

“Still,” I said, “a man who can build a wall this big probably ain't exactly destitute.”

“True,” added Merriweather. “In fact, he's probably more in need of an accountant than most.”

“And if this here wall is half as long as it looks to be, I got a feeling General Ling Sen ought to be happy to pay for a little heavenly insurance to make sure it don't get wiped out by earthquakes or floods or other such disasters as God is inclined to bring to them who don't toss a few coins into the poorbox every now and then.”

“I do believe we're in business, Reverend Jones,” said Merriweather.

Just then I heard some feet shuffling, which one hardly ever tends to hear when standing on grass like we was, so I looked up and, sure enough, there were three Chinese soldiers looking down on us from atop the wall.

“What are you doing here?” asked one of them in Chinese.

“Just looking for General Ling Sen's headquarters,” I answered.

“Why?”

“We've come all the way from across the sea to bring him spiritual and fiduciary comfort,” I said. “If you guys work for him, why don't you run off and tell him his lucky day has arrived?”

The three of them conferred for a long minute, and then one ran off along the top of the wall and the other two trained their rifles on us.

“Do not move,” said one of them. “We must decide what to do with you.”

A minute later a door opened about fifty feet away, and the soldier who had run off stepped out of the wall and motioned us to come to him. When we got there, we found ourselves facing half a dozen armed soldiers, who escorted us up this winding staircase, and after we climbed up maybe fifty feet or so, we stepped out through another door onto the top of the wall, which was a lot broader than it looked from the ground.

I heard a motor off to my left, and when I turned I saw a brand-new Bentley sedan driving right toward us. I was still wondering how they managed to get it onto the wall in the first place when it came to a stop and a big fat Chinaman stepped out, his chest and most of his belly all covered with medals.

“I have been told that you wish to speak with me,” he said in English.

“We do if you're General Ling Sen,” I said.

“General Ling Sen is no longer in charge here,” he said. “I am General Chang.”

“Well,” I said with a shrug, “it ain't like General Ling Sen was a close personal friend or nothing. This here is Corporal Marmaduke Merriweather of His Majesty's armed forces, and I'm the Honorable Doctor Jones, internationally-known man of the cloth.” Which was probably true, since there were still warrants out for my arrest in Illinois and Egypt and Morocco and Kenya and the Congo and South Africa, and I didn't suppose they could all have forgotten me so soon.

“Doctor
Lucifer
Jones?” he said.

“Now how'd you come to know that?” I asked, surprised.

He smiled. “Your reputation precedes you, Doctor Jones,” he answered. “Already you have become something of a legend in Hong Kong and Macau.”

“You don't say.”

“I very much do say,” replied General Chang. He turned to Merriweather. “And what have we here—a deserter from the British army?”

“
They
deserted
me
!” replied Merriweather. “
I'm
still here at my post.”

“Why have you sought me out, Doctor Jones?” asked General Chang.

“I hear tell you run a territory of considerable size and complexity,” I said, “so I just naturally figured that such a big bunch of ignorant yellow heathen—meaning no offense—would probably be in dire need of spiritual uplifting and maybe a nightly bingo tournament, the profits of which the Tabernacle of Saint Luke would be more than happy to split with the employer of these poor lost souls.”

“And you?” asked General Chang, turning back to Merriweather.

“I should like to enlist in your army,” said Merriweather.

“Good. We can always use more men. I trust that you're accomplished at garroting and gouging out eyes?”

“Well, actually, my specialty is accountancy,” said Merriweather.

“
Our
specialty is conquest, pillage and rape,” said General Chang. “You'll just have to adjust.” He turned to two of his men. “Take him away and see that he's properly equipped.”

“But—” began Merriweather.

“No, please don't thank me,” said General Chang, as they began ushering Merriweather away. “All I ask is total, unquestioning loyalty and obedience. You can keep your gratitude for another occasion.”

“So, General,” I said, when Merriweather was out of earshot, “have we got a deal?”

“I think not, Doctor Jones,” said General Chang. “Christianity is such a sterile, repressed religion.”

“Not the way I practice it,” I assured him.