The Best of (12 page)

He peered ahead and swore mildly. The sleet seemed to be getting thicker. Nature was improving her screen for their attack.

In the old days, when a soldier was a warrior rather than a mechanic, generals had preferred to lose their men from wounds rather than from pneumonia. The great general, Julius Caesar, had reasonably remarked that 'in winter all wars cease' and until quite recently the Chinese had very sensibly gone home in preference to fighting in the rain. He wished they still did, damn them.

But that custom, along with many others, had changed now. Somewhere beyond the shroud of sleet there were thousands of Chinese sitting in trenches, pillboxes and redoubts, ready to blow his and all the other Japanese tanks to bits if they could, despite any inclemencies of weather.

The officer frowned. He was a loyal servant of his Emperor, of course; he would be willing to shoot anyone who suggested that he was not, but, all the same, there were moments when he privately and secretly wondered if the expense in men and money was worth the object.

His father had been in the expedition to Manchukuo and that was a definite success, but his father had also been in the 1937 campaign which had looked like being a success in the beginning, but had drawn to such an undignified end for Japan in 1940. And now here was another generation fighting over the same ground twentyfour years later. And what if they won? Markets, they said, but could you really force the Chinese to buy things they didn't want from people they hated? He doubted it, for he had come to know their stubbornness well.

The tanks passed through their own lines and entered noman'sland. The officer abandoned his speculations and became intent on his job. The sleet was still thick. He could see only the first tanks to his right and left, though clearly enough to keep his position. There was no sign of life from the Chinese lines. He wondered what that portended. It might mean that they were actually unaware of the coming attack, but he doubted that. If it were so, it would be their first surprise for a very long time; there were too many damned spies about. More probably it meant that they had some new trick to play. They nearly always had.

Orders came through on the short wave for the whole line to incline 30deg. right. He acknowledged and passed it on. Presently they altered back again and the line was travelling due west once more. Still there was no sign from the opposing lines. The heavy tanks lurched forward in a shrouded world at a steady ten miles an hour.

Until now it was a tank advance like any other save that the opposition was long in coming. The officer was still at his lookout and in the process of forming a theory that the Chinese must be running short of ammunition and consequently withholding what they had for effective shortrange work, when the thing which distinguished this advance from any other occurred without warning.

It seemed that his head was violently seized and jammed at the embrasure in front of him. His steel helmet met the wall of the turret with a clash, instinctively, he put up both hands to push himself away from the wall. For a moment nothing happened, then the chinstrap gave and he staggered back violently.

Even in that moment he was aware that the movement of the machine had changed. Through the din of mechanism he could hear the men below cursing. He stepped down from his platform, furious at their disobedience. Ten miles an hour had been the order; it was the big tank's quietest travelling speed. By the present motion he judged it had speeded up to twenty or more.

Inside there was a state of confusion. The driver was still in his seat, though helmetless. The others, also helmetless, were at the front, tugging at something and swearing.

He put his head close to the driver's.

"Ten miles an hour!" he yelled, through the din.

His voice was loud enough for the others to hear and they turned. He had a glimpse of a confused pile beyond them. Steel helmets, bayonets, rifles and all loose things had been thrust forward into the nose as far as they would go.

"Get that stuff back," he roared.

The men looked at him stupidly and shook their heads.

He thrust past them and seized a submachine gun on the top of the pile. It did not move. He tugged, but it stayed as though it had been welded to the rest. The men looked on, wideeyed. The officer dropped his hand to his holster, but it was empty. He became aware that the driver had not obeyed, the machine was still travelling too fast. Catching a hold, he dragged himself back. The driver's speedometer read 25 miles an hour. He cursed the man.

"It's no good," yelled the other, "she won't stop."

"Reverse!" bawled his commander.

The twin engines roared and then began to slow. There was an appreciable check in the tank's speed.

The place began to fill with blue smoke and a smell of singeing. Suddenly the noise of the engines rose as they raced furiously and the tank lurched forward again. The driver throttled down; the roar of the engines dwindled and died.

"Clutches burnt out," shouted the driver as he switched off.

The tank went on. He and his officer stared incredulously at the meter showing over twenty miles an hour, and then at each other.

The officer swung back to his platform. He picked up the earpieces of his shortwave communicator and spoke rapidly. There was no reply, the instrument was quite dead. He looked at the compass. For a moment he thought they had turned through a right angle and were going north, then he realized that it had jammed.

Through the observation louvres he saw that the tanks to right and left were still more or less abreast of him; one had its turret open and a man was signalling with his arms. He thrust his own cover upward and stood up in the stinging sleet. From the other's signs and the fact that he also was bareheaded he gathered that his machine was in a similar plight. He dropped down again and wiped the sweat and snow from his face.

The tank trundled on uncontrollably towards the enemy lines.

The tank officer watched with a frown. He could do nothing but observe, and it seemed to him that by the distance they had gone they should be close upon the lines, or else they had turned while he was below. It was impossible to tell.

Suddenly he became aware of something coming up on his right. As it drew nearer he could make out one of their own Japanese light tanks overtaking him at a speed eight or ten miles more than his own.

The two men in it had got rid of their top shield and were hanging on grimly to the sides. He could see their scared and puzzled expressions as they passed.

While they pulled ahead he noticed that the sleet was thinner and visibility a little better. He could see a road crossing their path, then the yellowbrown earth of a ploughed field and then something which might be water. He looked harder. Soon there was no doubt. It was a river and he could distinguish some kind of building on the opposite bank. There was no doubt that they had been pulled well off their course.

The men in the light tank had seen it, too. When they were halfway across the ploughed field he saw them jump out and roll over in the loam. They picked themselves up quickly to dodge the following heavy tanks. Their machine dashed on and disappeared over the river bank.

The officer bent down. He gave rapid orders to his men to open the doors and abandon the machine.

They lost no time in obeying. Looking back, he could see the string of muddy figures picking themselves up and gazing after him.

He himself waited; it was still possible that the machine might stop, but he opened the observation cover and made ready. Halfway across the ploughed field he pressed the button of the emergency fuse, and jumped.

He staggered up, plastered with mud and heedless of the other runaway tanks, to watch his own. He hoped desperately that he had judged the time well enough to save it from falling into enemy hands. He watched it reach the builtup river bank and begin to climb. Then as it topped the rise and tilted, preparatory to diving into the water, it seemed to fly apart from a flame which abruptly shot up amidships. The sound of the explosion came back to him with a rumbling boom.

He sighed relievedly, and then turned to meet the Chinese soldiers who were advancing from cover, grinning and holding short swords.

George Saltry would have liked to smile, but he had spent a number of years of his life in learning dissimulation. One did not smile when engaged in official dealings with men of high rank; it immediately roused all their suspicions and lessened their confidence. A facade of unrelieved stem dignity was required, even though everyone knew it was only a facade. Particularly, one did not smile at Japanese headquarters.

So it came about that George, as he waited in an anteroom for admission to the presence of an important man, maintained an expression as uninformative as that of the Japanese officers around him. But he was not unaware of the thoughts passing behind their motionless faces. He could feel their hostility and he knew its causes—first, that he was a man without official rank and yet apparently unashamed of the fact; secondly, that he was a European, and for all Europeans they felt a contempt mingled with mistrust.

In the halfhour he waited no one spoke. The Japanese scarcely moved. They sat gazing steadily before them as if in contemplation. It was, he thought, appropriate, for where the Emperor is both military and divine, his officers must be his priests.

At the other end, a door flanked by two sentries with fixed bayonets opened enough to admit a head. A secretary hurried across and exchanged a few lowtoned words. He turned and came back. With a perfunctory bow, he informed George that the General was ready to see him.

George was aware of the close scrutiny of three staff officers to whom he paid no attention. Before the General's desk he bowed slightly and waited.

General Kashaihoto was a short man beginning to go bald. He lifted a round face decorated with a thin, dark drooping moustache and studied the European face before him with a pair of bright, intelligent eyes. George, returning the gaze, could see behind the General's eyes a suggestion of reluctance and faint distaste, but he was used to that and no longer allowed it to disturb him.

He knew that the military man dislikes the spy and the informer, but that he must use him. He knew, moreover, that that dislike arises from the uncertainty of the spy's status as much as from uncertainty of his loyalty. A secret agent to do good work must be partly in the confidence of his employers and more in that of the other side, but, it is to the interest of the employers to keep that confidence down to the minimum.

In a war between nations of the same stock, where a man of one nationality may pass as one of the other, it is not too difficult to find reliable agents, but in a racial war where each man of the alien race is an obvious suspect to the other side it is more difficult. One must either depend on the unsatisfactory method of bribing members of the enemy race and bribing them heavily, or one must employ the services of a third party whose interests are commercial only. It was as such an agent that George Saltry was employed at present. As a member of a neutral race his appearance did not identify him with either cause. There were Englishmen helping the Japanese and there were Englishmen helping the Chinese.

He could, if circumspect, pass in either country as a friend.

General Kashaihoto deplored this necessity for using foreign agents; one could appeal to nothing but their acquisitiveness and one was never quite sure whether the enemy might not have made a higher bid. However, this man Saltry had a useful record and on this occasion it was not necessary to confide important secrets—merely a few occurrences which were being withheld from general public knowledge. He said severely: "You should have reported yesterday."

"Yes," George agreed.

"Why did you not?"

"Because my house was watched. It is an unnecessary risk to have me report here at all," he added shortly.

The General frowned. It was not a tone he liked or expected. He looked harder at the young man, but George Saltry knew better than to have his gaze borne down. He waited.

One of theaides brought a note and the situation was relieved. The General read it, gave instructions and then turned back to George.

"The Chinese have been using a new weapon," he said.

"So I understand," George nodded.

"You understand? And where did you hear it from?" demanded the General.

George shrugged his shoulders.

"These things leak out. It is my job to hear about them."

The General frowned. It was true that such was an agent's job, but one preferred it to be practised on one side only.

"What have you heard?" he said.

George admitted to knowing no details. He had heard only rumours, but the kind of rumours which obviously had something behind them. He had tried to learn more but without success. The General looked more pleased.

"You had heard nothing from the other side?" he asked.

George shook his head.

"No," he said truthfully. "That has been puzzling me. If it really is important, the secret was unusually well kept."

"It's important, all right," he was assured.

General Kashaihoto described several of the occasions when the weapon had been employed.

The first recorded instance had been during a tank attack at the beginning of December. Ten heavy tanks and about a score of smaller ones had inexplicably gone out of control. All of them had deviated precisely the same degree of the south of their planned course and made for a river. Subsequently, the Chinese had pulled them out of the river and were now using them—all save one which was intelligently destroyed by its commander—against their former owners.

On another occasion an infantry attack had been completely disorganized. The one or two survivors had told an extraordinary tale. Their rifles and bayonets had been suddenly wrenched from their hands, and their steel helmets from their heads. The helmets had rolled away ahead just as though the level ground were sloping downhill. The rifles had clattered a few feet and then come to rest. When they picked them up they had to hold them back as against a strong pull. It was impossible to aim them or wield them for bayonet work. In the face of a counterattack the men could not resist, and the pull was too strong for them to bring them back, so they had to be abandoned.